Whisky, in all its iterations, is not just an end product, not just a drink...though it is a good one at that. It is a science, an art, alchemy and magic, geography and history, and it is people (um, not like soylent green...).
There are many exemplary sites out there on the making and tasting of whisky, and I don't intend on reinventing that wheel. I just want to bring some story to what I think is a fascinating process.
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Showing posts with label Iain Banks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iain Banks. Show all posts

October 29, 2010

on malting

While savouring a dram of Redbreast Irish pot still whiskey, I finish reading Iain Banks's "Transitions". It gets me thinking about transitions - change, the movement between states. So of course that leads to thinking about malted barley (malting as one of many transitions involved in making whisky, and the fact that most Irish whiskey is made with unmalted barley...just nod and pretend you follow me). Who first figured that barley should go through the extra time, effort, and energy to germinate the grain before using it to distill our favourite tipple? It's a process that is systemically more costly than just using barley reaped and dried straight off the field. Maybe it was one of those serendipitous mistakes - barley stashed under a leaky roof, discovered too late but too valuable to discard...I'm just musing here, I'm sure somewhere out there is an historical explanation.

The first two are a couple photos of barley quietly germinating on the malting floor at Laphroaig. It's time, labour, and space intensive to malt this way - that's why few distilleries do it for themselves any more. I'm thinking the process was only undertaken after the establishment of distilleries as legal entities able to occupy a relatively large footprint, the first arguably founded sometime during the last quarter of the 18th century. Prior to the luxury of a malting floor, I suggest that most Scotch whisky must have been made with unmalted barley.

I also suggest you pick up one of Iain Banks's works, with or without the M. His "Raw Spirit" got me reading him, and though it is not quite representative of his more widely distributed subject matter the book is a tasty dram, a roadtrip through the landscape of Scotch whisky.


empty malting floor at the Laphroaig Distillery

a grain wheelbarrow at Laphroaig used to spread the steeped barley by hand across the malting floor


turning the germinating barley on the malting floor at Bowmore Distillery

you've seen a similar image here before - raking the growing barley at Bowmore so it doesn't mat together into a tangled mess


a motorized rake and germinating barley on the malting floor of Bowmore Distillery

a motorized barley rake at Laphroaig - undoubtedly a lot easier on the maltman's back!


a handful of germinating barley after two days on the malting floor at Laphroaig Distillerya handful of germinating barley after three days on the malting floor at Laphroaig Distillery

           after two days on the malting floor            after three days on the malting floor


germinating barley on the malting floor of the Springbank Distillery

the malting floor at Springbank, Campbeltown


germinating barley on the original malting floor of Kilchoman Distillery

the malting floor at Kilchoman, Islay


germinating barley on the malting floor at the Balvenie Distillery

the malting floor at the Balvenie, Speyside


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