Whisky- The Essential Guide

11 July 2022 - Inn Express

6 whisky

Whilst legend has it that grains were distilled in 13th century China, it is widely accepted, that Ireland was the birthplace of the water of life made from barley.

 

It is known from anecdotal writings that whisky played a part in Ireland’s life from the 1400s but the first official evidence seems to come from a 1556 Act of Parliament: “...graine in making of aqua vitae...”.

 

The first tangible proof of the spirit of barley was from the Scottish Exchequer Rolls of 1494, which states “VIII bolls of malt to Friar John Cor wherewith to make aqua vitae”. John Cor was a monk based at Lindores Abbey in Fife, which existed from the late 1100s to 1559. A boll was a Scottish measure that would have been the equivalent of just over 5 bushels, and this could have produced about 1000 bottles of spirit, but of course, we don’t know what strength the final spirit would have been distilled to.

 

Regardless, the nomenclature is Celtic; aqua vitae in Gaelic is 'uisge beatha', which became uisge and ultimately whisky. In both countries distillation developed through the middle ages and by the 17th century, whisky drinking had become widespread. In 1644 taxes were imposed on Scotch whisky and laws were passed restricting the rights of distillation. In Ireland taxation began a few years later in 1661. Whilst this may have raised some money for the Exchequer it gave rise to illicit distillation. Distillers made false declarations and sold quietly on the side, or more commonly, they simply disappeared into the countryside with their stills.

 

Across the Atlantic, the first wave of America’s Scots and Irish immigrants also brought distilling techniques (although it is more likely rum was the first to be made in America; molasses was brought to New England from the Caribbean as part of the trade triangle of slaves, molasses and rum) and by the mid-1600’s applejack, peach brandy and whisky were being produced along the East Coast. These pioneering colonists soon found that whilst barley was ideally suited to British and Irish soils and climates, corn and rye would be much more rewarding crops in their new land. Couple this with a natural disposition for independence and rebellion, and it is not surprising that American whiskey branched off in a different direction both in terms of production methods and taste.

 

Ireland led the way in whisky production, the first official distilling license being granted in 1608 and one hundred years later there were reckoned to be 2,000 stills in operation! However, just as Irish distillers probably introduced us to whisky, the country also was the first to introduce formal temperance societies; the establishment of the Ulster Temperance Society in 1818 heralded a century of rising prohibitionist tendencies which finally lead to the Volstead Act in 1920, in the USA.

 

The American temperance moves combined with the development of continuous distillation and the arrival of the phylloxera outbreak in Europe (which temporarily removed brandy from the market) led to the demand for whisky rocketing. Irish whiskey producers before this time had been outselling Scotch as they were larger in number and used unmalted barley which produced a more popular lighter spirit. The Scots took to the new Coffey stills as did the Canadians and in these two countries production advanced enormously, for a period in the 1860s and 70’s Canada was the world’s largest producer of whisky, but in the 20th century, it was in Scotland that the industry powered ahead.

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All whiskies are the result of a mash of cereals and water that have been saccharified by enzymes, fermented by yeast, and subsequently distilled before being aged in oak barrels and finally bottled.

The typical cereal grains include:

 

Barley

 

With so many strains available today, distillers want to strike the right balance between quality and quantity yielded,

they look for plump, ripe barley with plenty of starch and not too much protein or nitrogen. Used predominantly as malted grains.

 

Maize

 

Widely regarded as producing the weightiest of grain whiskies and the predominant grain in American Bourbon.

 

Wheat

 

Produces lighter whiskies and along with maize produces most of the world’s grain whisky.

 

Rye

 

Used on its own, sometimes with a proportion of malted barley, and often as the flavouring grain for many Canadian and US whiskies.

 

Mixed Grains

 

Single malts aside, many whiskies utilise a mix of grains depending on the required flavour profile of the brand.

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Steeping

 

Soak the cereal grains in water. After approximately 48 hours the moisture penetrates the grain. As a result, enzymes in the embryo move to the endosperm, its starch store, thus modifying it from a rigid structure to a fragile one and allowing germination. The germination process changes the chemical structure of the starch and the resultant sugars promote seed growth.

 

Malting

 

To Malt or not? Malting the grain eliminates the need to ‘cook’ the cereal to order for us to access the starch we will convert to sugars. Most malted grain is bought from specialist maltsters who will affect the process pneumatically in either box or drum, both of which contain turners that keep the grain separate and ensure the free flow of air throughout the bed. Some malt is still produced on malting floors, where the grain is spread and regularly raked as it begins to germinate. As a result of converting starch to maltose, rootlets and seedling shoots appear and the grains are now termed green malt. To maximize fermentable matter and retain adequate diastatic power this process is halted and the green malt is sent for drying. For large-scale production of grain spirit destined for column distillation, more often the un-malted cereal is cooked under pressure using steam which softens the grain starch, rendering it soluble.

 

Kilning Or Drying

 

The kiln is normally a tower-shaped hot air chamber with a heat source, sometimes fan-assisted, below a wire floor that the green malt is spread out on to dry before milling. Here, if peat or wood chips are used or added to the heat source the drying grain can pick up the smokey flavours.

 

Milling

 

The extent to which the grains are milled is crucial to the effectiveness of the resultant grist as it determines the amount of starch that is extracted and converted to sugar during the mashing stage. Too little and not enough starch will be exposed and converted into sugar, too much and the floury consistency will stick, go soggy and prevent good filtration. Ideally, the grist should contain a good proportion of unbroken husks as these provide greater buoyancy in the mash and aid filtration in the mash tun—a cylindrical metal vat with rotating paddles. Where mixed grains are used, such as in Bourbon, the different grains are milled separately and measured so that the exact proportion of each grain is introduced to the mash cooker in the right sequence and at the right temperature. Often a proportion of malted grain is used to give a starter effect to the fermentation process.

 

Mashing

 

The grist is placed in a mash tun and combined with very hot water giving a slurry where the starch can dissolve and the mixture is left for about an hour. Corn is a very tough grain that must be cooked at extremely high temperatures under pressure to modify its structure. Whereas wheat and rye are cooked at lower temperatures; the former to preserve its character and the latter to ensure that rye clumping which can cause bacterial infection, does not occur. After several hours of cooking and cooling a warm porridge-like product called mash is produced, where the process has converted the starch into sugar, and this is either used directly or ‘lautered’, washed out.

For most Scottish and Japanese malt and grain whiskies, a sweet liquor known as wort is drained off in successive washes. The wort is then cooled and pumped into the fermentation vessels known as washbacks. In Canada and the USA, the lautering process is often omitted and mash is pumped directly to the fermentation vats.

 

Fermentation

 

Yeast is added to the cooled wort or mash and fermentation begins; depending on factors including the type of yeast, the temperature, and the type of grain, it will normally last about 48 hours and the resultant distiller’s beer will have about 6-8 % abv for rye mashes and up to 14% for corn. In the USA, an additional control on fermentation speed and flavour development is the amount of backset added (which must be a minimum of 25 % of the mash volume to be called sour mash). Backset is the spent grains from the previous distillation, this leaves leftovers after the alcohol has vaporised; it is very acidic and thus slows fermentation, helps prevent bacterial infection, and counters the natural alkalinity of the region’s water. In turn, the backset increases the complexity of flavours in the end product, aids consistency of character and ensures a totally unique product after many generations of distillation.

 

Distillation

 

The distiller’s beer is now ready to go into the still. Methods have evolved around tradition and convention. In Scotland, malt whiskies are distilled twice or thrice in pot stills and all-grain whiskies are rectified in column stills. In Ireland, both malted and unmalted grains can be pot distilled, either two or three times, whilst lighter grain whiskies are distilled in multi-column continuous stills. In many countries that use hybrid pots with or without short columns, common in Europe and the USA craft movement, distillation may utilise both methods and in some instances, a single column is used after the pot.

 

Pot Distillation

 

Shapes and sizes of stills vary between distilleries, but all affect a double or triple distillation. The ferment sent to the first pot needs rummaging as otherwise the solids may stick to the still’s sides and result in burnt aromas. Rummagers—rotating arms with webbing—are built into the inside of these stills. The heat is turned on, the alcohol vaporises and the resulting low wines (about 20 % abv) are sent to the second pot, where the procedure is repeated. In the final distillation, be it the second or third, the first vapours or foreshots and the last vapours, feints are not potable and are returned to the first still to repeat the process. The heart of the distillate is collected and this new whisky is approximately 70 % abv.

 

Column Distillation

 

Although more brutal with the raw materials the resultant whiskies can be more elegant. Normally utilising more than one column, steam is fed into the bottom of the first column, the analyser, and the wort is fed into the top. When the two meet the alcohol vaporises and together with the uncondensed steam, passes into the second column, the rectifier. The vapours again rise to the top and are condensed and collected on a cool spirit plate. The foreshots and feints are returned to the wash for re-distillation.

 

Ageing

 

Before the spirit is transferred to casks an initial reduction with de-mineralised water may be made to reduce the leaching of character from the oak. In the USA straight whiskies (except corn) require ageing in new casks, this fortunately, means that a great number of used casks are available for other spirit producers, and therefore much of the rest of the world’s whisky matures in second-use wood. Whisky can also be transferred to other casks for finishing; this imparts flavours from the new cask, such as sherry, wine or another spirit.

 

The location of the ageing warehouse is a major factor. Whiskies matured by the sea will generally pick up coastal undertones and on the west coast of both Scotland and Ireland will be affected by the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream. Their respective east coasts are much cooler and the rate of evaporation, and therefore maturation, is slower. In the case of bourbon, whiskies are matured in either brick (cooler) or iron-clad (hotter) warehouses… …known as ricks… …which are generally about nine stories high. The vagaries of the climate are such that in summer the top floors are unbearably hot whilst the bottom floors are quite cool and in the winter the top floors are quite warm whilst the bottom is cold. Therefore the barrels on the top stories are much quicker to mature than those on the bottom. In some countries such as Canada, different whiskies and even ages are blended before maturation and it is also not uncommon for a blend to be returned to ageing before bottling.

 

Some distilleries talk of moving barrels around to try and consistently mature each barrel but this is generally admitted to be too labour intensive. Most, blend barrels from each part of the warehouse or different warehouses together for consistency and a well-balanced, complex spirit. This blending is quite an art, as each distinct microclimate will bring the whiskey a different profile.

 

Blending

 

It has been said that if the distiller is a chemist, then the blender is the artist, however, this miss-states the importance of both jobs. What the blender does do is skilfully marry the component bulk whiskies to ensure that the required flavour profile is available for bottling. This could involve blending one or more types and ages of spirit produced in a single distillery (very typical of production in Canada, America and Ireland) or blending the whiskies from many distilleries, both malt and grain (more typical of Scotland and Japan).

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