Understanding Whisky Production Unit 1: Overview
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Whisky Production: From Grain to Glass
How single malt and grain whisky are produced under Scotch and world regulations, tracing the five core stages from mashing to oak maturation.
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The universe is notoriously indifferent to human beverages, but it has at least arranged the laws of physics so that turning damp cereal into high-proof spirit is theoretically possible. Doing so in practice, however, requires coaxing grain, water, microscopic fungi, and oak trees through five distinct stages of biochemical persuasion.
Under Scotch whisky regulations, this persuasion is strictly policed: you may not add artificial enzymes, you may not distill above 94.8% ABV, and you must let the result slumber in wooden casks for at least three years and a single, fiercely important day. That surplus twenty-four hours exists purely to pacify excise officers who broke out in a cold sweat, terrified that a cask broached on day 1,095 might still be legally underage until teatime were leap years not accounted for. The result is a process that balances Victorian industrial chemistry with staggering amounts of quiet waiting.
What is a Distilled Spirit?
Perhaps at the outset, it would be beneficial for us to define what constitutes a ‘distilled spirit’. A distilled spirit is an alcoholic beverage, produced from the distillation of the product of an alcoholic fermentation.
Human beings have been producing alcoholic beverages for millennia. Some of the earliest examples were produced around 10,000 B.C. These drinks were produced for purposes ranging from currency and religious practices, to medicine and general recreation. Many of these early beverages were in the form of wines, beers, meads, or combinations of the three. The distillation of these and many other types of fermented beverages did not evolve until Arabic groups began distilling wine, around 800 A.D. Prior to this period, distillation was used as a method for the production of medicines, perfumes and essences. However, humankind is an industrious and curious animal, and we can thank our ancestors for the foresight of distilling alcoholic beverages - and eventually giving us the spirits we consume today.
The proto-spirits for our modern whiskies, brandies, and gins all originated between 1100 and 1400 A.D. Rum and agave spirits are relative newcomers, being produced in new world colonies after circa 1500 A.D.
Regardless of when they originated, these beverages all share some basic production principles:
- A sugar-rich substrate is produced and allowed to ferment and produce alcohol.
- The resulting liquid is heated inside a closed vessel so that the more volatile compounds boil off into a vapour state, leaving the less volatile components behind in the chamber.
- These vapours are allowed to travel through an apparatus to a point where they are cooled and condensed back into a liquid.
- The resulting liquid is now enriched with a higher amount of alcohol and higher concentrations of the various flavour and aroma compounds.
We will take a more in-depth look at how whisky is typically produced in a modern setting.
Whisky & Whiskey
The spelling itself is a quiet diplomatic minefield: the Scots, Canadians, and Japanese prefer the clean, economical whisky, whereas the Irish and Americans insist on slipping an extra e into whiskey, partly out of historical stubbornness, and partly on the deeply held linguistic principle that if an alphabet contains an extra vowel, it is an act of sheer negligence not to find gainful employment for it. For the sanity of everyone involved, we shall use whisky for the singular, whiskies for the plural, and leave the orthographic border skirmishes to the diplomats.
The branches of the great whisky family tree are as numerous and wide as any of the other spirits categories. As such, the definition of whisky depends heavily on what part of the world you are in. Generally speaking, whisky can be defined as “a product of distillation of fermented cereals where the distillate is no higher than 94.8% abv.” (94.8% abv seems a bit arbitrary at first glance, but it is not. One of hopefully many interesting facts you will discover throughout this guide.)
In certain countries, the legal standard for whisky requires some ageing in wooden casks, while in others, an un-aged spirit may also be called whisky. Some countries even allow for the addition of non-cereals in the fermentation when producing their whiskies. However, for our purposes, those spirits will not be considered as ‘whisky’.
Different countries will have different legislations for spirit production, but for our purposes, we will mostly use the European Union’s (EU) definition of spirits. Let us take a close look at the EU’s definition of whisky:
Regulation (EU) 2019/787: Definition of Whisky or Whiskey
(a) Whisky or whiskey is a spirit drink produced exclusively by:
- (i) Distillation of a mash made from malted cereals with or without whole grains of other cereals, which has been:
- Saccharified by the diastase of the malt contained therein, with or without other natural enzymes;
- Fermented by the action of yeast;
- (ii) One or more distillations at less than 94.8% vol., so that the distillate has an aroma and taste derived from the raw materials used;
- (iii) Maturation of the final distillate for at least three years in wooden casks not exceeding 700 L capacity.
The final distillate, to which only water and plain caramel (for colouring) may be added, retains its colour, aroma and taste derived from the production process referred to in points (i), (ii) and (iii).
(b) The minimum alcoholic strength by volume of whisky shall be 40% abv.
(c) No addition of alcohol, diluted or not, shall take place.
(d) Whisky shall not be sweetened or flavoured, nor contain any additives other than plain caramel used for colouring.
Do not feel any pressure to understand everything in the definition just yet. across the following chapters, all of these pieces should come together for you. What is important is that you understand what a basic legal spirit definition looks like, and how it comes together.
Notice that things such as distillation strength, cask size, and bottle strength all have conditions associated with them. The additions of extra alcohol or sweeteners are also mentioned. Regardless of this, strip away a lot of the legal jargon and we are left with " a product of distillation of fermented cereals where the distillate is no higher than 94.8% abv. " An important difference in the EU definition is the ageing requirement.
Whisky is an important spirit family to the world economy and is worthy of attention and understanding. It contains the world famous single malt Scotch and Bourbon, along with lesser globally known drinks such as grain whisky and rye whiskey. In fact, many countries the world over have their own unique interpretations of whisky. Irish, Canadian, Australia, New Zealand, and France all have their own styles. In recent years the Japanese have been making headlines with all the awards and accolades they’ve received for the whiskies they’ve produced.
Throughout this field guide you will learn about the raw materials used in whisky production, how they are processed into a sugar rich material, and how this is fermented. You will then learn about the various facets of whisky distillation, and how ageing in wooden casks affects the final spirit. Finally, we will discuss some of the co-products that can be produced from the leftover material of the whisky distillation process.
Key Takeaways
Distilling is fundamentally a sequential transformation: barley provides starch, enzymes convert it to fermentable sugars, yeast manufactures ethanol and aroma molecules, copper stills concentrate the vapour, and oak casks spend years extracting, oxidising, and rounding the final spirit.
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