The Whisky Guy Blog

Forgive the delay in my latest post.  I am back to intermittent Internet access and can’t update as frequently as I’d like.  One of the blessings/curses of being where I am on the island.  It’s secluded and beautiful, but not much in the way of phone or Internet access.

My last day at Bruichladdich - for the time being - was a wonderful lesson in how to appreciate whisky given to me by Jim McEwan himself.  I spent the early part of the day taking a pretty difficult test.  He presented a “nosing kit” to me which contained 54 small vials.  Each vial had a distinct aroma to it.  My job was to identify the aromas.  It’s much harder than it sounds, especially as all the aromas started filling the room and blending together about halfway through my hour-long test.  Still, I managed to finish in the top ten percentile, according to Jim.  So, the size of my nose paid off.  And it helps to know that I’m not just making things up when I nose whisky or wine.  I actually know a thing or two.

We then spent part of the afternoon sampling some of Bruichladdich’s fantastic stores of casks.  Jim offered me Bruichladdich’s much-talked about X4 — a quadruple-distilled single malt that is 80 percent alcohol.  He told me everyone who tastes it can only say, “Wow” after their first exposure to it.  So, my first words after tasting it? “Wow.” And I couldn’t stop laughing while I repeated that word over and over.  But, there’s no other way to describe it.  Well, there was a way that the BBC’s James May described it, which is best heard rather than repeated (the Bruichladdich segment is near the end of the episode):  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00h5vtj/Oz_and_James_Drink_to_Britain_Episode_3/

Jim also allowed me to sample some other Islay offerings from the cask, including a lovely 18-year-old Lagavulin that was the perfect warmer to a cold and windy day.

I’ll be returning to Bruichladdich on occassion to spend more time in the warehouse, which I just love.  But in the next couple of weeks, I will branch out to some other island distilleries and write about those.  Stay tuned, as well, for a couple of articles I’ll have appearing in some soon-to-be-named publications.

I spent the other day in Bruichladdich’s bottling hall.  They are one of the few distilleries that bottle their own whisky, which allows Bruichladdich to be highly innovative in their release selections.  It’s economically viable for them to run small runs of a particular bottling, as they can do the label and, if necessary, bottling change overs pretty quickly.

In chatting with the labeling folks, I was made aware of the demands that different countries place on alcohol labels.  And no two demands are ever the same.  The regulations for each country is different to the point where even a minute labeling change could be necessary, not only from country to country, but in some cases from province to province.

As far as I can tell, based on my work in the political realm on researching interstate and international alcohol laws, the only real reason for these differences is to give bureaucratic agencies something to do and another revenue stream.  In the U.S., these antiquated laws mean that consumers pay more for a product than they should, simply because there are unnecessarily regulated steps that are in place to distance the consumer from the distiller, brewer or vintner.

The U.N. is trying to solve unrest in the Middle East, nuclear concerns in Iran and North Korea, and deep recession throughout the world.  International powers-that-be can’t even come up with a universal labeling system for alcohol (for example, Americans need to be warned that alcohol could cause health problems, while the rest of the world seems to figure that out without having a label on their bottle).  How can we expect them to stop wars when they can’t even figure out stickers?

For those of you who have never been in a whisky warehouse, let me try to help you visualize.  Imagine having a can of Coke in your refrigerator.  Now, fill every shelf in your refrigerator with cans of Coke.  And while you’re at it, put a few hundred cans in your bedroom.  A few thousand in your living room.  Another couple of thousand in your garage.  A few thousand more in your basement.  The phone rings.  It’s your friend who says, “Remember that can of Coke I had you store at your place, the one that I wrote my name on?  Can you find it for me?”

Cask management is a complex aspect of distillery operations.

Casks are stored like needles in a carefully mapped haystack.  Warehouses are separated along a distillery site and in some cases are even miles away.  The separation is done in part for risk reduction purposes: if some kind of accident befalls one warehouse, there will still be ample whisky stored elsewhere.  It’s also done to balance out storage of particular spirits.  The whisky in the wood is affected by the external conditions in which its stored.  A cask stored close to the floor in a damp warehouse will affect the whisky inside it differently than a cask stored 50 feet high in a dry warehouse.

The risk reduction element means that casks of the same spirit (whether it be the same based on barley used in the mash or the type of wood its aged in) can be separated among those numerous warehouses.  So, when the call comes in that an 8-year-old whisky is ready to be vatted and bottled, there is a chance those casks will need to be retrieved from several places.  This makes the job of the warehouse crew a bit more challenging.  They may have to go to more than one warehouse.  They may have to pull some casks from ground level and climb up four stories to reach others. 

The most challenging part of cask storage and retrieval at a place like Bruichladdich comes from casks owned by individuals.  Bruichladdich and several other distilleries sell private casks to individuals who use them as investments or private bottlings.  When one of these individuals calls and wants to taste the progress of the whisky in their cask or have it bottled, it’s up to the warehouse to find and retrieve it.  Meticulous records direct the crew to the right cask, but it’s their often intense physical and logistic efforts that end up bringing the cask to the light of day for the first time in years.

The next time you have that “Limited Bottling” of your favorite malt, or you stop into your local liquor store and they have their own label on a single cask offering, know that more than water, grain and yeast went into that spirit.  Some complex storage plans and raw physical effort helped bring that whisky to your lips.  Raise a toast to the unheralded folks who work this side of the whisky business day-in and day-out.

I’m going to take a break today from the descriptions of life behind the scenes at a distillery to chat about the most visible aspect of a distillery: the gift shop.  Seriously! Where is the first place you go to find out if you can tour a distillery?  Where is the last place you visit?  Uh-huh.  The gift shop. 

Bruichladdich’s gift shop is housed in an old warehouse that dates back well-over 100 years.  The shop is run by Mary McGregor, whose family helped build the distillery.  Mary is an Islay native, as are most of the distillery’s 60 employees, and her friendly smile is the invitation that tells first time visitors, “Hello! Come meet the Bruichladdich family!” and embraces return patrons with a heartfelt, “Welcome home!”

I really respect how Managing Director Mark Reynier, Production Director Jim McEwan and the other Bruichladdich decision makers put their team together when they resurrected the distillery a few years ago.  For the operations side, they brought back the men who had worked at the distillery when it was mothballed in the mid-1990s.  Their expertise was invaluable for the distillery to get off to a running start when it reopened. 

Management wisely went an extra step when they added to the team by recruiting people like Mary - and yes, recruit is the right word, as they selectively plucked people from around Islay to be part of their venture.  In doing so, they delivered to visitors employees who could be representatives of Bruichladdich as well as ambassadors of Islay.

In Mary’s case, she was working at the Museum of Islay Life down the road in Port Charlotte.  Her love of people, not to mention her wealth of knowledge about all things Islay, from the distant past to the dynamic present, was as integral to the external image of Bruichladdich as the right barley was to the internal operations.  So, she was lured away from the museum.

Even here, in what is perhaps the least likely time of year to visit Islay, with the rain, wind, snow, sleet, cold…you get the picture…Mary and her tour-guides-in-training, Julie and Caran, have greeted people from half a dozen different countries in the past two weeks.  They also have onlookers from around the world eyeing Web cams to watch them hard at work and emailing them with questions or with product orders.

At the end of tours here at Bruichladdich and other distilleries, visitors have the chance to sample the whiskies.  Perhaps the guests understand the whisky process better after the tour, and maybe they even appreciate the spirit in a new light.  But, it’s the big smiles and heartfelt goodbyes guests take home with them that proclaims they’ll always be part of the Bruichladdich family.

Well, my last post about having so much respect for and interest in the Bruichladdich warehouse sent out the cosmic message that said, “Rob needs to return!”  I started my second week at Bruichladdich this morning and Jim McEwan said the warehouse needed an extra hand, so back I went.

Today, it was primarily Grant and me working away in the warehouse, as Adam is in the mash house this week.  Alan, Andy and James were also in and out, helping with cask unloading and such, but it was Grant and Rob handling most of the activity.  We were drenched to the bone unloading casks in the cold Islay rain, which frequently shifted over to snow and then back again. 

We had finally managed to dry our clothes enough to be comfortable when we were doused again, this time with new spirit whisky.  I won’t get into the details of how this happened, but let’s just say if you’ve ever imagined of showering in whisky, talk to Grant. He did it today.  I had my own share of whisky wetness as well from that unexpected spurt.  The amount of whisky was actually minimal and it was quickly cleaned up according to procedure.  It was just one of those things that resulted in a good laugh and the realization that not all produced spirit makes it into the bottle. 

We made up for it, though, by filling dozens of casks with new spirit, which won’t see the light of day for several years.  I am fairly tired after pushing, pulling, loading and unloading numerous casks today.  But, I also have a deeper connection to the unheralded part of the whisky-making process - the filling and storing of casks.  There’s an incredible amount of work involved with those steps, and I have a continued deep respect for the people who shepherd whisky day-in and day-out.

For weeks, I’ve been walking the hills in Islay, exploring ancient ruins, enjoying incredible views of the ocean and other islands (including the big island of Ireland) and taking in the freshest air imaginable.  The arduous strolls have been great for my lower body conditioning.  My challenge during this time has been to balance that out with some good upper body work, aside from push-ups and seated dips.  Well, I found the answer in, what else? Whisky.  And no, it’s not through kicking back dozens of drams every night.

For the past two days, I’ve been working in Bruichladdich’s warehouse.  There, I have

Casks being filled at Bruichladdich.

helped fills casks and, more importantly, moved them to their temporary resting places where they will sit for several years or longer.  In that little cask world, this feisty new spirit goes off to school and gains character under the headmaster tutelage of the bourbon, sherry or other wine that the cask held previously.  It’s a wonderful self-contained world where spirit, wood, air and that bourbon/wine influence transmogrify into whisky.

I haven’t spent much time in a warehouse in recent years, but when I was in college and just after, I had plenty of factory and assembly line jobs.  I always really liked the warehouse guys, no matter which company I was at.  They were fun, loose, had great senses of humor and really enjoyed being in the warehouse.  The guys at Bruichladdich carry on that tradition.

Their good-natured attitude, however, does not detract from the seriousness they devote to the job.  They’re the ones responsible for casking and vatting the whiskies, and most importantly, keeping an eye on the casks, day after day, year after year.  Without their care, little leaks could lead to ruin; mislabeled casks could disappear among thousands of others, much to the dismay of private holders; and mishandled casks could smash into people or objects, causing serious injury or loss of important inventory. 

I have been hot, hot, hot the past couple of days!  No, I’m not refering to a great haircut from Shannon or a new Ben Sherman overcoat.  My spirited opening sentence has to do with just that: spirit.  My ongoing Bruichladdich education took me to the still room, where fermented wash is distilled and distilled again to pull off fine spirit nearing 70 percent alcohol.

The still room at Bruichladdich.

Neil and Budgie, the two stillmen, took the time to walk and rewalk me through Bruichladdich’s distillation process.  Unlike my time in the mash house, which was more observational than active, I was right in the heat of things, so to speak.  With still temperatures hot enough to bring more than 7,000 liters of liquid to a frothy boil, the still house is an ideal place to be during the Islay winter.

Budgie put me to work straight away, managing the steam flow to the wash still, weilding big, heavy handles to help him turn valves on and off, watching the quality of the foreshots, low wines and spirit using hydrometers in the spirit safes…in short, I was making whisky.

I’ve been to several distilleries where the still operations are run by computer and monitored by the still men.  They still produce fine spirit, and the still men certainly know their jobs.  However, I had the feeling with Budgie and Neil that the stills, safes and every last valve were more like well-recognized old friends than machinery.  Both men run the stills in slightly different ways, in the same manner PG and Peter ran the mashings with subtle differences. 

Jim McEwan said that’s the essence of Bruichladdich: it’s a handcrafted whisky that exudes the diversity of the craftsmen behind it.  If Bruichladdich’s standard bottlings taste a bit different from one year to another, that’s a good thing, Jim believes, because it’s a return to the handcrafted legacy whisky-making fore-bearers left us. The only consistency Jim wants is in a high quality single malt hitting the bottle. 

Budgie explains the process to me as seen on Bruichladdich's Web Cam (thanks to a loyal reader!)

Time in the still room really helped me watch my “baby” grow up.  The spirit that we distilled was from some of the mash that I helped turn into wort and watched (and smelled…mmmm) ferment.  Today, we helped it grow up into Bruichladdich spirit.  The next step is to watch it mature, and in order to do that, I need to….well, you’ll read about it tomorrow.

I am now 24 hours into a new way of looking at whisky: from the inside.  For the next two weeks, I am learning all there is to know about whisky making from the innovative experts at Bruichladdich Distillery (www.bruichladdich.com) through immersion — not in whisky, but in the process.

At the invitation of distillery manager and whisky legend Jim McEwan, I am going to essentially shadow the Bruichladdich team in all facets of production.  For the past two days, I’ve been working with PG and Peter in the mash house.  It’s here that the malted barley is mixed with hot water to draw out the sugars, which are eventually converted into alcohol in the fermentation and distillation processes. 

The water and barley grist make their way into the mash tun.

Bruichladdich has a rare four-wash mash cycle (compared to the standard three) in which the last two washes go into the first two washes of the next mash.  This draws even more sugar out of the grain.  Each cycle takes about 6-8 hours.  The wort (sugar-rich water) from the first two cycles are piped to the washbacks in the adjacent tun room, where it ferments (once yeast is added) in a 35,000 liter pine washback for  60-70 hours. 

At any given time, four of the six washbacks are filled and are in various stages of fermentation.  One washback could be bubbling like a witch’s gigantic cauldron, as the reaction from the yeast throws off hot carbon dioxide.  Another washback could be enjoying the calm from the end of the fermentation process and, in fact, contain a fruity, fizzy “beer” that is strangely drinkable.

PG and Peter came to the whisky life years ago from other careers (fisherman and farmer), and expertly execute their jobs (including milling the barley several times a week).  The mashing process is a slow one, so there is often time spent watching barley bubble in the hot water or doing other minor tasks.  But when it comes time to empty or fill the mash tun, it’s a flurry of activity with multiple levels of valves needing to be opened, temperatures to be watched and maintained, and mash to be stirred.   

Emptying thousands of liters of wort into the washback tun.

My tasks were minor, carrying and dumping yeast into the cavernous washbacks, but I still had an important introductory education.  My biggest impression is how much character of the final spirit is imparted in the mashing process.  Bruichladdich claims 60 percent of the final character is developed in this stage.  Based on the cereal and fruit aromas I noticed growing increasingly stronger as the wort fermented, and even as the sugars were being drawn from the barley in the mash tun, I’d have to agree.

It still amazes me that barley, water and yeast are these basic all-natural ingredients that end up becoming this amazing spirit.  But, I guess the monks who invented whisky didn’t have much else to work with, so they made magic from mash.

Next up for me is the still room, where the fermented wash is distilled into the “spirit” of Scotch.  In other words, I’ll spend the day in a furnace room, which is good considering how cold Islay’s been this week!