Traditional
means of producing Scottish whisky remain alive and well on the Scottish west
coast island of Mull at the Tobermory Distillery. This opened in 1798 and is
best known for its Ledaig and Tobermory Single Malt whiskies made exclusively
on-site from malted barley.
The
distillery is only yards from the harbour of arguably Britain’s most
picturesque village of Tobermory, made famous with younger television viewers
through the BBC Children’s Programme Balamory.
With
the local tourist industry struggling, then in a village of less than 800
people the distillery, with eight full and two part-time staff, all local
people, is like other distilleries in Scottish rural locations, an important
employer. Scottish whisky is currently enjoying strong sales in newly emerging
markets in Asia, South America and Africa. Diageo, producers of Bells and
Johnnie Walker has just announced an investment of £1bn, which will create up
to 1,000 new jobs.
A
24-hour five-day a week four stage production process, consisting of malting,
mashing, fermentation and distillation, is needed to manufacture 750,000 litres
of spirit annually. Much of the
machinery is old and well used. This though wasn’t why production had stopped
when I visited. Two years ago a six-month halt saw workers competing to sweep
an already spotless courtyard.
“We
have a private water supply up the hill and when it dries up we just have to
wait. We can’t take water from the tap as that’s full of chemicals and we need
pure water,” explained chargehand Tom Watt, whose brewing skills, like all employees,
have been learnt from the previous generation of workers.
Water,
barley, sourced locally wherever possible, and yeast are the three ingredients
in whisky. The individual flavours are the result of the drying process after
barley has been converted into a simple sugar, the use of heavily peated fires
resulting in the Ledaig whisky tasting very different from the natural drying
Tobermory whisky.
Both
though are distilled using a unique technique. Due to a lack of space the
‘swan-neck’ well-used flavour-adding copper pot stills used at other
distilleries have been replaced by a double-turn. This helps add an additional
twist to the flavour at the end of a production process lasting between 80-90
hours. At the conclusion of which says Watt “the art of collecting the stills
can also play an important part in determining the flavour and quality of the
spirit before it goes for maturing.”
This
fifth stage of production takes much longer and whilst the 10 year-old Ledaig
is left to mature in former Spanish sherry casks the same age Tobermory spends
its life in former bourbon casks from the US. In another flavour twist the 15
year-old Tobermory though spends time in both.
Watt
says this makes “the production of Scotch Whisky an art, one acquired over
hundreds of years and which we are very proud of.” We’ll drink to that!
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