Scotland's Second-best beverage*

* subject to hotly contested debate of course, but I have to stand by my newest love, Irn Bru.

Before we embarked on our epic whisky adventure around Scotland, or more specifically, Islay, I only knew a couple of things about scotch. One, scotch whisky is spelled WITHOUT an E but Irish whiskey is spelled WITH an E (I am a spelling fanatic and this drove me crazy until I knew the truth). And two, I couldn't really stand the taste of it. Sometimes, even the smell made me gag. Case in point:
Me: *sniffing* Do you think Ted rolled in something outside? Did you take your shoes off?"
Matt: "Uhm, no, why?"
Me: Something's weird...I smell feet...or something...
Matt: Is it this? (proferring his dram of something pale and oily)
Me: Argh! Stinky feet in a glass! How can you drink that?

Don't get me wrong, I tried to like it...I tasted and sampled and tried it with water, with ice, in tiny sips, in big gulps, and usually with the same result: wrinkled nose, squinty eyes, suppressed gag, sputtering cough. Oh, I also knew that the whiskies that Matt liked best were from this place called Islay and it had something to do with the peat. But I was pretty sure that peat was like dirt and it wasn't right to be eating or drinking something laced with dirt. Unless you're a silly weenie dog, in which case it's still not right, but I digress. I did learn to discern different tastes of whisky, and I could name certain points of them, like band-aid, bile, motor oil, firey, tar. Apparently those are my words, not sure they're something the distilleries like to advertise.

But when on Islay...whisky is a way of life there, and the main reason we'd crossed Scotland by car and ferry, so of course I wanted to check out the distillery tours although I'd already promised my complimentary drams to Matt. And do you know, that the process of making whisky was pretty darn interesting? It's also pretty complicated and it took a couple of tours before I put it together in my head but now I feel nearly ready to open my own wee distillery. Does anyone know if there are any peat bogs around here?

Since I might just about be the most knowledgeable whisky un-drinker out there, I'm going to try to tell you how they make this stuff:

First, one must malt the barley in water in order to release the sugars. It's then spread out over the floor to encourage germination, and its gently smoked. Here's the primary difference between Islay whiskies and almost all others: The barley is smoked over a peat fire, which lends it the peaty or smoky flavors. For most other whiskies, the barley is heated by blowing hot air above and below it, minus the peat (this is the kind that I like. No dirt for me.) Only a few distilleries malt and smoke their own barley anymore, and on Islay most of the barley is malted at the huge Port Ellen Maltings plant. Each distillery specifies the type and amount of barley, and somehow they specify how "peaty" their malting will be. Peatiness in whisky is measured by ppm phenol, and can range from 3 ppm (Bruichladdich, you are tasty) to 160 ppm (Ardbeg, your wee doggie mascot is so cute but your whisky makes me gag).

The malted barley is then ground through the mill which separates it into three parts: the flour (the inside of the seed), the husk, and the seed. The outcome of the grinding is called the grist. The amount proportion of grist that is husk, seed, and flour is determined by the mill and is slightly different for each distillery.

The grist is then washed. Most distilleries wash it three times: the first wash is around 69 degrees C, this runoff water has the most flavor and peatiness. The second wash is hotter but contains less water, this is done to make sure all the deliciousness is extracted from the grist. The second wash is added to the first water. Then just to make for absolutely certain no tastiness was left in that grist, a third even hotter wash is done. The water from this wash is re-used to be the first water for the next batch.

The washes then go into huge huge barrels and the yeast is added to them...this is plain boring flavorless yeast, not brewers' yeast for beer. The yeast germinates and carbon dioxide is released creating all kinds of warmth and bubbly foam and if you're a sucker they'll let you taste this concoction on your distillery tour. It's just kinda like warm flat
hop-less beer however.

After the yeasts have been bubbling and partying in their barley baths, the whole mixture gets send into still #1. Stills are also specific to each distillery, their shape determines how much and how fast the alcohol is distilled. This process is still a bit murky to me, but as far as I can tell the still is heated up until the alchohol becomes a vapor which rises to the top then falls down the spout of the still where it is condensed by big cooling condensers.



This happens a couple of times because the first alcohol bit is apparently sort of poisony, like methanol or something, it's called the feint. Finally the alcohol spirit that is condensed is juuuust right, or 43% alcohol as required by law in Scotland. And it shouldn't poison you either.

THEN the spirit is put into the cask.
This is usually a used bourbon cask from the US. Each bourbon cask holds 250 liters and costs around 250 pounds. Sometimes sherry casks from France are used, these cost around 700 pounds. The oak and the flavors that are left in the wood are drawn out and are what gives the whisky its color. And THEN you wait...for at least 3 years, usually more...maybe 12, maybe 18. Sometimes the spirit will be moved to another cask for finishing, this can be anything from a rum cask to a wine cask. On Islay, the casks are aged in open-air stone buildings. Apparently the relatively mild and damp climate is perfect for the whisky, and only .6 % is lost to "angel's share" as opposed to the usual 2%.

And THAT is all I know about whisky now. I still don't really like it, but I am finding more kinds that I can tolerate and even appreciate it a bit. Just no peat, thank you very much. It's still just dirt to me.