FAQ

Why is gin called Mothers Ruin?

The term Mothers Ruin refers to the impact the spirit had during the Gin Craze of the 1700s. Thousands of gin shops sprang up around England between 1695 and 1735. The resulting spirit was harsh at the best of times and, to make it drinkable, ‘Common Gin’ was often flavoured with turpentine or, to achieve a somewhat sweeter spirit, might even be distilled in the presence of sulfuric acid! The result may have been inexpensive compared to other drinks, including beer, but it was barely palatable and often toxic.

Because of its astonishingly low price, it began to be widely drunk by the urban poor. This period was marked by the rapid growth of cities and towns and a correspondingly high demand for cheap housing. Living conditions in the resulting slums were appalling yet in spite of this —or more likely because of this—people were intent on producing and consuming huge quantities of gin in their homes.

In 1723 the death rate in London outstripped the birth rate and gin was blamed for lowering fertility and raising mortality. In face of this, the government finally started to curb the flow of gin that, it was said, was producing a ‘‘drunken, ungovernable set of people’’.

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How is gin produced?

The science and art of producing gin rests on two pillars of (1) distillation and (2) the extraction of flavours and aromas from botanicals. There are only a handful of gin distilleries in the UK that obtain a distillers license to produce their own neutral grain spirit. The majority have a rectifying license, and buy in neutral grain spirit then re-distill it with their botanicals.

In general terms, to be classed as a gin the spirit must have a predominant flavour of juniper. Today, British law recognises three types of gin: London Dry, Distilled and Compound Gin.

Compound Gin

Compound Gin has traditionally been a cheaper or homemade product created by soaking a blend of flavourings and botanicals in a neutral grain spirit. With few legal restrictions on the addition of colouring and flavouring, it can be of somewhat inferior quality, but it doesn’t have to be. A number of high-quality Compound Gins have been produced over the years, including, for example, Ableforth’s Bathtub Gin

Distilled Gin

The regulations for both London Dry Gin and Distilled Gin are strict, including that the final product must be at least 37.5% ABV. They are both based on a neutral grain spirit of agricultural origin which is then re-distilled in the presence of natural flavourings. Natural or approved artificial flavourings and colourings, including sweeteners can be added to produce a distilled gin, but there are a few extra regulations put in place for London Dry.

London Dry

To be called a London Dry Gin, all flavourings must be natural and must impart their flavour during the re-distillation process.The resulting distillate must also have a minimum strength of 70% ABV, after which only ethyl alcohol, water and a tiny amount of sugar can be added.

Despite these regulations, there are many ways of introducing botanicals during the re-distillation process and, of course, innumerable ways they can be combined.

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Gin botanicals

Botanicals are the vital component in gin, and 6, 10, or even 50 might be used as long as juniper remains the predominant flavour. Despite the variety of botanicals available and the fantastic opportunity for experimentation, a few key components are considered crucial for creating the right balance of flavours in different types of gin.

A classic London Dry recipe traditionally includes coriander seeds, citrus peel, angelica root and orris root. With bright, spicy and fresh notes from the citrus and coriander, and earthy, herbal savoury notes from the angelica, the orris root binds these flavours together and imparts a clean, floral aroma.

Liquorice was traditionally used in Old Tom. In Tanqueray’s recreation of an eighteenth-century recipe, it is mixed with juniper, angelica root and coriander to impart some additional sweetness before being blended with un-aged wheat spirit and beet sugar.

Much like distillation, many of the spices which contribute to the aroma of gin can be traced back thousands of years Coriander, despite not being native to Egypt, has been found in several Egyptian tombs, including Tutankhamun’s, whilst the ancient Egyptian incense Kyphi used a locally varying blend of botanicals, often including cardamom and cassia, to scent clothes and air.

How to drink single malt Scotch whisky…

The key is how you enjoy it. There are subtleties in the spirit that are best appreciated neat, and may be overpowered if you mix. However, the Japanese Highball, a shot of whisky topped up with soda, can be a refreshing alternative to straight Scotch. A Hot Toddy, with lemon, honey and hot water is a soothing and warming drink, we love it with a smoky, spicy malt whisky.

Adding ice can make your whisky more palate-able. It will temper the intensity, and rapidly reducing the temperature can lock down the aromatics and flavour compounds and make them harder to identify. However, over time the ice will dilute your whisky, and the addition of water can actually open up a whisky and release the subtler flavours and aromas. Traditionally, and the way we like it, is neat with a small drop of water.

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What is single malt Scotch whisky?

Single malt Scotch whisky simply means a whisky made from malted barley, distilled and matured for a minimum of 3 years in Scotland, and coming from a single distillery. This term often gets confused with single barrel and blended malt. A single malt Scotch is a blend of whiskies from a single distillery, a single barrel malt is a single malt from a single barrel, and a blended malt is a blend of single malts/barrels from a range of distilleries… confusing, indeed!

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How is Scotch single malt whisky made?

The production of Scotch whisky is far from simple. Hundreds of flavour compounds are found in single malts which are created in all parts of the fantastically complex process, and decisions made at various stages will affect the character of the finished dram. There are 5 key factors in play when making Scotch whisky; malting, milling, mashing, fermentation, distillation and, maybe the most important of all, maturation. We will explain these briefly below, but we explore all these processes in more depth in our Six Classic Styles of Scotch blind tasting set, so why not learn all about it as you enjoy and share six diverse single malts.

Malting;

Yeasts produce alcohol and carbon dioxide as they consume sugar, and the first step on the road to making whisky is to produce a rich source of soluble sugar to feed the process. This is done by a process known as malting, which encourages barley (a rich source of starch) to germinate, developing diastase enzymes in the grain, which will be used later in the process to convert the starch to sugar.

Seed germination requires moisture and is affected by temperature. Traditionally, the barley is first steeped in water for 2-4 days, and then encouraged to germinate on a ‘malting floor’ for a further 4-5 days. Workers would go up and down the malting floor with flat wooden shovels-turning the germinating barley to keep it properly oxygenated, dissipate heat and prevent the fine roots from becoming entwined and creating an immovable thick matted slab.

When the barley is nearly ready to sprout, heat is used to halt germination. This was often done by hot air in a drying kiln or a peat fire. Temperature control is critical at this stage, partly to ensure the grain’s natural enzymes are not destroyed prior to mashing, but also because the degree of toasting that takes place will ultimately influence the flavour of the whisky.

Most distilleries now buy in malted barley from large-scale producers, although individuality is not lost as each will specify precisely how they want their grain to be treated.

Milling;

Once the barley has been dried, a malt mill crushes the barley with rollers to produce a coarse grist which is then sent to the mash tun and mixed with hot water. The barley is crushed to maximise the amount of sugar that can be extracted during mashing, the next stage in this complex journey…

Mashing;

The malting process led to the barley grain producing diastase enzymes, including amylase. These enzymes are crucial to the whole process as they catalyse the breakdown of the starches in the barley into maltose, a type of sugar that will feed the yeast as it produces alcohol during fermentation.

As enzymes are responsive to heat, the crushed malted barley grist is mixed with hot water in the mash tun and gently agitated. After perhaps an hour, a sugar-rich solution, the wort, is drained off, and a second batch of slightly warmer water is then added to the mash tun to tease out more sugar. Further, and hotter, waters may be used to create the ‘sparge’ which is then kept to be used as the first water for the next mash.

Once the wort has been extracted for fermentation, whats left - the draff - has traditionally been sent to local farmers to feed their cattle, although some large distilleries now dry the draff and burn it as a renewable source of energy!

Fermentation;

The sugar-rich wort is then pumped into washbacks (large vessels usually made from steel, pine or larch) and special strains of yeast are added. During fermentation, the yeast splits the sugar molecules into ethanol (alcohol) and carbon dioxide in a process which produces heat.

Careful temperature control is a vital part of the fermentation process. High temperatures are needed for mashing, but the wort is cooled to avoid killing the yeast when added. Fermentation then starts to heat the wort again. The challenge is that the optimal temperature for converting sugar into alcohol is about 34ºC, but at temperatures about 35ºC yeast starts to die off.

The length of fermentation varies between distilleries and can last anything from 50 - 120 hours, with longer fermentations said to produce more complex flavours. Late lactic fermentation is something we discuss in our Six Classic Styles of Scotch accompanying booklet.

Distillation

Much of the flavour and colour of whisky arises during the long ‘conversation’ between the spirit and the wood during maturation, but its underlying character depends on the nature of the still an condenser used to distil the spirit. Careful heating of the wash (above 78.4ºC but below 100ºC) evaporates the alcohol (ethanol) and the vapour rises up the neck of the still until it is directed into a condenser where it is turned back into a liquid.

Each distillery in Scotland has its unique set of pot stills, but one thing they all share is copper. This is the perfect choice for a number of reasons; it is malleable, long lasting (a still can be used for 40-50 years) and a great conductor of heat. Its pitted surface also catches and reacts with a variety of unwanted compounds in the vapour to help clean the distillate. Cyanides, carbonates, acids and sulphurs are all returned to the wash, and the greater the level of contact with copper the lighter the spirit tends to be.

Before distillation, the wash is a complex broth of water, alcohol and a variety of flavour compounds known as congeners. The art (and science!) of distillation lies in carefully controlling the process so only the desirable congeners are retained in the distillate - though quite what these will be will depend on the characteristics being sought.

If you visit a distillery, it is common to see a spirit safe. This contains two bowls to catch the condensed vapour. The first flow of liquid during distillation (known as the ‘foreshots’ or ‘heads’) contains light, volatile compounds with low boiling points. Most of these are generally not wanted and get collected in the first bowl ready to be recycled into the next distillation.

After the heads have passed through, the distiller will direct the ‘heart of the run’ into the second bowl, ready for the cask. Finally the ‘feints’ or ‘tails’, start to come through. These contain most of the heavy, oily, least volatile and often bitter compounds, so the distiller switches the flow back into the first bowl.

Capturing a small proportion of the congeners in the foreshots and feints will contribute to the character of the final whisky, so a key part of the distiller’s art is knowing when to cut in and out of the heart of the run. This will depend completely on the desired malt. For example, Macallan takes a fine cut for the heart of the run, wanting to achieve a pure, clean and smooth spirit.

A whole host of factors affect the balance and character of the distillate that goes into the barrels. The number of times the spirit is distilled, the speed, heat and duration of distillation, and, of course, when the distiller chooses to make their cuts.

Maturation

The final, and by far the longest, stage in whisky’s journey also has a crucial role to play. During its time hidden in the cask, the clear and pungent new-make spirit invariably changes colour, flavour and feel through what are described as additive, subtractive and interactive processes.

Additive maturation, as the name implies, refers to the manner in which components in the wood - primarily hemicellulose and lignin - break down and produce a range of aromatic compounds which combine with the maturing spirit.

Precisely which compounds emerge, and how strongly, depends on the type of wood, how it has been treated, and whether the cask had previously been used to store or transport other spirit or wines. A variety of different barrels are used, sometimes just to ‘finish’ the whisky, but most distilleries mature their whiskies in ex-bourbon barrels that have been charred (blazed with fire) to release aldehydes such as furfural (imparting an almond-like grainy flavour), syringaldehyde (spicy, woody aroma) and vanillin (a vanilla tone), and phenolic compounds such as guaiacol (smoky flavours), eugenol (spicy and clove-like) and cresols (associated with medicinal or ‘coal tar’ smells).

Subtractive maturation comes to the fore when it comes to removing undesirable and raw flavours from the distilled spirit. For instance, although copper stills strip most of the sulphur from the spirit during distillation, some sulphur compounds will often remain. Subtractive maturation will largely remove these from a well-aged whisky.

Interestingly, temperature appears to influence the balance between processes of additive and subtractive maturation. At the Makers Mark Distillery in Kentucky, for instance, once a bourbon barrel has spent time on the hotter, higher levels of the warehouse gaining flavour from the cask, it is then moved down to lower, cooler areas to ensure the sulphurous components in the spirit are absorbed by the cask.

Finally, interactive maturation refers to reactions taking place within the spirit itself, largely due to oxidation. This encourages the production of esters with fruity and floral overtones. Cask breathe as temperatures rise and fall through the seasons, taking in new oxygen and, in Scotland, gradually losing alcohol vapour. This process results in about 2% of the spirit being lost from the cask each year—the so-called ‘Angel’s Share’.

Hundreds of different flavour compounds have been identified in whisky, many originating with the wood barrels in which it matures. But maturation is an immensely complex process which builds upon and transforms the particular attributes of the raw spirit produced by different distilleries. Our Exploring Maturation box explores this topic through a careful selection of single malts which illustrate the wondrous ‘conversation’ that takes place with the wood.

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Are whisky barrels re-used?

The simplest answer - yes. Most whisky barrels used for Scotch whisky maturation have been reused, and will be used again. They will usually specify what barrels have been used for maturating the whisky. Virgin oak/new oak means a completely fresh, unused barrel, first fill means it has been used to hold spirits once, second fill twice, third fill… you guessed it, three times. Although charring the barrel will open up the wood and release more flavour, the more times the barrel is used, the less aroma and flavour you can capture from the oak. Some companies like Diageo rejuvenate casks by removing the ends, routing back to new wood and re-toasting/ charring the barrels.

It is common to reuse barrels when making Scotch whisky, but in American law, bourbon whiskey must be matured in charred new oak containers, so there are no shortages of first fill American oak ex-bourbon casks for Scottish distillers to reuse. Cheap and accessible, and releasing fruity and sweet flavours like vanilla and coconut, it is no wonder the majority of Scotch whisky is matured for most of its life in American oak ex-bourbon barrels, then often ‘finished’ in sherry, wine or rum casks.

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