History of Whisky Production. By: Lyric Kilpatrick

Transcription

1 History of Whisky Production By: Lyric Kilpatrick

2 Whiskey and Whisky Whisky is known to be called the water of life because they believed it was a cure and medicine from the herbs it had been made out of. Whiskey with an e, means it was produced in the United States or Ireland. Whisky without the e, means it was produced in Canada, England or Scotland. The spelling can also refer to the versions of the whisky such as Canadian or Scotch. Uisce beatha (1405) Iskie bae (1583) (ooshkie-bayha) Usque baugh Other spellings of the word Water of Life Uscough baugh (1600) Uskebath (1713) Usquebagh (1682) Usquebae (1715)

3 Historical Facts There was one year, 1943, where no scotch whisky was produced. Between 1875 and 1975, he number of Scottish distilleries grew from 112 to 122 Whisky wasn t the first alcoholic beverage consumed and produced. Beer came first, then brandy and liqueurs, then whisky. Whisky became the drink of Scotland. All scotch whisky is made from water, peated barley and yeast.

4 History of Distilling, Fermenting and Whisky- Making Practices of Fermentation dates back nearly 10,000 years ago, with strong evidence of Ancient Egyptians and Hebrews turning grains into beer with various recipes. There is evidence of beer-brewing in the UK in 3000 BC, but whisky-making came centuries later. Egyptian Chemists in Alexandria began manipulating liquids and substances by heating, mixing and pulverizing them.

5 History of Distilling, Fermenting and Whisky-Making Cont. They used a Cucurbit topped by a sliming bent neck also called the Alembic. The Cucurbit was a bulb-like container that was used to boil a liquid. The Alembic condensed the vapors, liquefying them. Once the vapor liquefied it would trickle into a receiving flask. Alembic Receiving flask Cucurbit These Cucurbit and Alembic models came from Ancient Alexandria, Egypt in the first century AD, or shortly after.

6 Early history Arabs from the Middle East were the first ones to create instructions to distill, i.e transform and purify. This method was called Alchemy. Alchemy is a form of a chemical process of converting a substance of lesser value to a substance of great value depicted from pictures. The Arabs called this substance al-kohl, an Arabic term, which was later derived as alcohol.

7 Early History Cont. This distilling process began widely spreading across the eastern hemisphere. The distilling of spirits for alcohol did not appear until the fifteenth century. ( ) The earliest concrete evidence of whisky-making in Scotland was recorded in the Scottish Exchequer Rolls in The Exchequer Rolls was a system to record the finances of the royal families as well as any type of revenue they made or spent. At that time, King James IV granted Edinburgh with the opportunity to produce whisky so he could establish a monopoly. Whisky became a widely-desired good, that parliament began taxing the products in 1644 and started limiting production to certain classes of people; Earls, Lords, Barons and Gentlemen.

8 Early History Cont. Regardless of these laws, people had been producing whisky in far-off farmlands in the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Most people who distilled illegally were usually the poorest in the village. Tariffs on distilled spirits were first implemented by parliament in 1643, seeking to find money while England was in the midst of war, they sought out money from whisky. In 1781 Parliament banned private distillation. Authorities began seizing anything having to do with distillation and production of whisky. With taxes on the rise, distilling was being illegally done more often, bringing the Small Stills Act of 1816 into action to decrease to amount of taxation on legally produced whisky products, which had later been amended.

9 Excise Men Put into place by Parliament Excise men were used to manage the amount of whisky the legal distillers were making. They would develop a tax bill that the owner of the distillery would have to pay by recording the amount of distilled spirits produced. They caused the production of illegal whisky-making to drastically increase. Tried to improve the tactics and types of law enforcement they used trying to encourage legally whisky production.

10 Whisky-Making Process Whisky is comprised of cereal grains we farm, such as rye, wheat, oats, barley and corn that have been fermented Barley Corn Rye Wheat

11 Fermentation Fermentation is a process that produces alcohol with sugar, yeast and water as the ingredients. You will create a certain type of alcohol depending on which ingredients you use. Yeast is a fungus, that is used to produce alcohol, and is also a single-celled microorganism. After 5 to 10 percent of an alcohol level is reached, these single-celled microorganisms become inactive resulting in distiller s beer.

12 Grain Preparation Grain preparation is an entirely different 3- stage process that is particularly important to the whisky-making process. In order to make whisky you need spirits, and in order to make spirits, you need a hard starchy seed from a plant and convert it to a sugary substance. The first stage in grain preparation is malting which is comprised of steeping, germinating and drying, in that order Steeping, you begin soaking grain seeds in tanks of waters, then a few days you later begin the germination process. In the germinating process, the embryos of seeds begin growing to a specific point and will start drying the seeds to stunt the growth of the embryos.

13 Milling Milling is the second stage in the grain preparation process. The malt that was produced from the first stage, will contain sprouted seeds which will be processed through a dressing machine snipping off the sprouts Once the rootlets have been removed from the seeds it will run through a mill, crushing the seeds.

14 Mashing Mashing is done so that the sugar from the seeds can be altered into alcohol. Causes a starchy, unpalatable porridge becomes a sweet, drinkable liquid by converting the malted grains starch into a sugar in a mashtun. Mashtun; Large tank filled full of hot water Wort is created as the biggest desirable portion in the mashtun that can be produced. Wort- the sweet infusion of ground malt or other grain before fermentation, used to produce beer and distilled malt liquors.

15 Maturation and Bottling When whisky is received in the spirits receiver it could be at a 140 to 160 proof concentration. You can reduce this concentration by adding water. Whisky is kept indifferent size casks or barrels in order to age the whisky or alter the flavor and even the color. Scotland requires their whiskies to be aged no less than 3 years. There are many aspects that can contribute to the alteration of whisky such as, the type of grain used, type of water, type of barrel, the wood of the barrel, the amount of years it has been aged, even the type and age of the still you are using to produce this whisky.

16 Types of Whisky In relevance to the differing types of whisky, you can usually determine what the whisky will taste like by figuring out what country it was made in. For Example, Scotch whisky tends to taste smoky versus the Canadian, American and Irish whiskey.

17 Types of Scotch Whisky Scotch whisky is distilled barely and quite possibly other types of cereal grains and mature in barrels for at least 3 years. Single Malt Scotch Whisky - distilled at a single distillery from malted barley in pot still Single Grain Scotch Whisky - distilled at a single distillery from malted barley in a patent still Blended Scotch Whisky - most sold scotch and is a blend of one or more single malt scotch whiskies with one or more single grain Scotch whiskies

18 Brands;

19 Distilleries in Scotland

20 Reference's; Kevin R. Kosar, (2010). Whiskey. 1st ed. london, UK: reaktion books.