You love whisky, and that’s brilliant. But has anyone ever actually told you how it’s made?
Whisky production doesn’t vary too wildly across the many countries that make it. There are technical differences, legal requirements, and local traditions, of course, but on paper, the process is fairly easy to get your head around.
So, let’s break everything down and look at how that delicious thing in your glass is made.
What Is Whisky Made From?
Grains. All whisky must be distilled from grain.
Those grains vary depending on the country and the type of whisky being made. Single malt whisky, for example, is made from 100% malted barley. Bourbon has to be made from at least 51% corn. Rye whisky, in the United States, has to be made from at least 51% rye.
Blended Scotch whisky is a mix of single malt and single grain whisky. Single grain does not necessarily mean it is made from one grain only. In Scotland, it means whisky made at a single distillery, usually from malted barley alongside other grains such as wheat or maize, and often distilled in column stills.
Technically, bourbon and rye are grain whiskies too, but they already have their own legal terms and production rules.
So, no matter what whisky you are drinking, it all started off as grain.
What Is The Main Ingredient Of Whisky?
As we’ve said above, grain is the starting point. But you also have two other very important ingredients: yeast and water.
Yeast is the unsung hero of whisky, and it is often overshadowed by grain, casks, and tasting notes. Yeast eats the sugars released during mashing and turns them into alcohol. Most distilleries use distiller’s yeast, which is chosen to maximize alcohol output in the wash before distillation.
However, a distiller could choose a more unusual yeast strain that creates a fruitier spirit, or one that yields a lower ABV than a standard run of liquid. How long you allow fermentation to continue is also very important. Longer fermentations can produce more esters, which contribute fruity aromas and flavors.
Esters have very scientific names, such as isoamyl acetate, which can smell like pears and bananas, or ethyl butyrate, which can smell like pineapple. We smell and taste these things as fruitiness, but much of it comes down to fermentation.
Water is just as important. Distilleries will typically use water from the same source throughout production, from mashing through to any dilution that happens after aging and before bottling. Great water will always help in making great whisky.
How Is Whisky Made? The Step-by-Step Process
Malting
You’ve selected your grain. Let’s say it’s barley.
To malt barley, you have to steep it in warm water to make it think that spring has arrived. It is then removed from the water and spread across a large floor, or processed in specialist malting equipment, to begin germination.
Small sprouts begin to appear from the barley, and the grain must be turned to stop it from clumping together. This germination process develops the enzymes needed to turn starches into fermentable sugars during mashing. That is exactly what we’re looking for.
Heating
At a certain point, you want to stop germination before the grain uses up too much of its starch. This is done by drying the barley in a kiln.
At this stage, you can choose to use peat or not. The grain can be dried with indirect heat, hot air, or peat smoke. If peat is used, the smoke rises through the kiln and infuses into the grain.
That peatiness can then carry all the way through fermentation, distillation, maturation, and into the final whisky after years of aging. Powerful stuff.
This is the point where peat is introduced, or not. It is the distillery’s choice.
Mashing
The malted barley is then ground into grist, usually made up of a mix of husk, grits, and flour. Each distillery will have its preferred balance, as the grind has to work properly with the mash tun.
The grist is added to hot water in a large tank called a mash tun. At this stage, you are not making beer yet. You are creating a sweet liquid called wort.
The mash is normally washed with hot water two or three times at different temperatures to pull as much sugar as possible from the grain. Once that sugary liquid has been collected, it is time to move on to fermentation.
Fermentation
The solids are separated from the liquid, and that sweet wort is moved into a new vessel, usually called a washback. Yeast is then added.
This liquid is now called wash, or distiller’s beer, and it usually sits somewhere around 8% to 12% ABV. How long fermentation lasts will help shape the final delivery of flavors, aromas, and esters in the whisky.
This is also where you have to watch the heat. As yeast interacts with sugar, it generates heat. If the wash gets too hot, the yeast can die, and then you have a serious problem.
Carbon dioxide is also created during fermentation. So, if you ever open a washback and get a fizzy sensation in your nose, that’s CO2. Always be careful around a working distillery.
Distillation
For traditional single malt production, we are usually talking about pot stills. In Scotland, single malt must be batch distilled in pot stills, although the exact setup can vary from distillery to distillery.
The first still is the wash still. The fermented wash is heated, and the first distillation begins. This separates alcohol from the heavier water, yeast, and other compounds in the wash. The result is a higher-strength liquid, usually around 20% to 30% ABV, called low wines.
Those low wines are then transferred into the second still, the spirit still. This is where the ABV climbs, and the distiller has to start making serious choices.
You don’t want the first liquid that comes off the still. This is known as the heads, and it contains volatile compounds that are not suitable for maturation. That liquid is directed away from the main spirit cut.
Once the distiller reaches the sweet spot, known as the heart, the flow is directed through the spirit safe and into the spirit receiver. This is the liquid that will eventually go into casks.
After that, the final liquid to come off the still is known as the tails. This is lower in alcohol and not suitable for the main spirit cut. Typically, the heads and tails are collected in a feints receiver and later redistilled. That way, as much usable product as possible is retained. Throwing anything away is a true loss of energy in every sense.
Maturation
Now for the fun part.
In single malt production, the new make spirit is often diluted to 63.5% ABV before being filled into casks, although there are exceptions. It is then filled into casks of the distiller’s choice. A huge amount of Scotch whisky is matured in ex-bourbon casks from America, though sherry casks, wine casks, virgin oak, and many other cask types are also used.
When it comes to bourbon, the spirit legally has to enter new charred oak barrels, usually made from American oak. Otherwise, it cannot be classified as bourbon.
For Scotch, Irish, Japanese, and Canadian whisky, the spirit must spend a minimum of three years in cask before it can legally be called whisky. For bourbon and rye whisky in the United States, there is no general minimum aging period unless you want to call it straight whisky. To use that term, it must have been aged for at least two years.
Bottling
Unless you are bottling a single cask whisky, the final whisky in the bottle will usually be made up of several casks, and sometimes dozens or even hundreds of them.
Depending on the style and market, the whisky may be bottled at cask strength, often 55% ABV or higher depending on age, or diluted down to a lower bottling strength. The legal minimum for whisky is usually 40% ABV, or 80 proof.
At this stage, a producer may choose to add coloring. This is not allowed in bourbon, rye whisky, or American straight whisky, but E150a caramel coloring is relatively common in big brands from Scotland, Ireland, Japan, and Canada. This does not apply if the bottle states “natural color.”
A producer may also choose to filter the whisky. Almost all whisky is barrier filtered to stop larger pieces of char or sediment from making their way into your bottle, although even this varies by brand.
Some whiskies are also chill-filtered. This process can be carried out at different temperatures and levels of filtration, but the basic idea is to stop whisky becoming cloudy or hazy when water or ice is added. That haze is not harmful, but some consumers may think something is wrong with the whisky.
Once all of these decisions have been made, the whisky can go into the bottle.
Does Whisky Contain Sugar?
No. Regular whisky, whether single malt, rye, bourbon, blended whisky, grain whisky, or blended malt, is not allowed to have sugar added to it.
Whisky can taste sweet, but that sweetness comes from choices made during production and maturation. It can come from the grain, fermentation, distillation, cask type, oak influence, and time.
If sugar is added, then the product becomes something else, such as a whisky liqueur or flavored whisky. Think Jack Daniel’s Honey, Drambuie, Glayva, or Fireball. These products contain whisky, but they also include added sugar and flavorings.
From Grain To Glass
What a journey that was.
There is always more to whisky production than you first think, and this is just the basics before you get into the really experimental and strange stuff. But from grain, water, and yeast through to distillation, maturation, and bottling, every glass of whisky has traveled through a remarkable process before it reaches you.
Read the full article at How Whisky Is Made: Ingredients, Distillation, and Everything In Between
