Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and Bang! So distillers take some care to make sure all the stones are removed from the
barley before it goes into the milling machine.
After this you make beer in a teapot, transfer it to a bucket and then boil it in a kettle.
Thereafter: barrel, bottle and serve.
Okay, this simplifies the process a little and glosses over vast amounts of skill and
potentially decades of time, but them's the basics.
The grist goes into a large cylindrical metal vessel called a mash tun; these usually
hold many thousands of litres. Hot water is added, the resulting mixture is stirred to keep
things going, the water is allowed to drain through the sieve-like floor of the mash tun
and the process is repeated twice and some water's recycled. Finally drained, the mash
tun contains draff, which, converted into pellets or cake, makes a really good cattle feed
(sadly for the cattle, there's no alcohol left in this stuff, so if a distillery tour guide tells
you they have 'happy cattle' nearby, just smile tolerantly).
The stuff that's drained away is a sweet brown liquid called worts - hmm - and goes
into one of the unsung containers in the whole distilling process: the underback (the mash
tuns and washbacks get all the attention - it's not fair).
Then it's those washbacks. These are impressive big things which are usually made of
Oregon pine and look like giant upside-down wooden buckets. Yeast is added to the worts
and this is where fermentation happens. Looking into a washback once the fermentation
process has gotten under way is very impressive; it's a little Corryvrecken going on in
there. You'd swear it's all being kept swirling and thrashing around with a big propeller
stuck in the base, but it's all just the energy unleashed from the sugars by the yeasts. In
fact the only motor in a washback is usually set into the lid to power a thin bar that re-
volves to knock the bubbles down, otherwise the foam threatens to overflow and escape
like a cheap special effect from a bad fifties science fiction movie. Handy hint: don't stick
your head into a washback at this point and take a deep breath; the carbon dioxide has
been known to knock people out.
Once all this excitement's died down, what's left smells like home-brewed beer and
has an alcohol content of about eight per cent, so it's pretty strong by beer standards (it
also tastes like shit by any standards, frankly, though it apparently acts as a highly effect-
ive laxative in doses above, say, about half a teacup).
This fairly horrible liquid is then transferred to a still, the copper-constructed, deeply
glamorous, photogenic part of the whole business (photogenic, that is, if they'll actually
let you take a photo; most of the Islay distilleries are pretty relaxed places and don't mind
cameras, but a lot of the more corporatised mainland ones won't let you use cameras in-
side, citing the danger of a flash setting off the spirit fumes. I find this dubious; do they
think people are still using nineteenth-century technology? You know; the little sticks like
miniature builders' hods loaded with flash powder which those photographer johnnies
