Innholdsfortegnelse for August/September 2024 i Whisky Magazine

Imagine the typical attire for the owners of a whisky distillery and many pictures will spring to mind: suits and ties, blazers and slacks, tweed jackets and raspberry cords. While bright orange boilersuits may lie further down the list, these are most likely to be Struan Mackie and Alex MacDonald’s outfits of choice at the moment. The founders are donning their high-vis overalls to oversee the latest expansion of North Point Distillery, perched on the Caithness coast, not far from the most northerly tip of the Scottish mainland. Having won a slew of awards for its gins and rums and sold all 50 casks of its maiden release Dalclagie single malt in just three days, the distillery is increasing its warehousing capacity at Forss, near Thurso. While most distilleries erect…

Whisky people are distillers, drinkers, thinkers, and, by extension, lawmakers of habit. This tendency holds especially true when it comes to the grains used in the world’s major whisky countries. According to law, single malt Scotch must be made from malted barley; single malt Irish whiskey, the same; American bourbon needs at least 51 per cent corn in the mash bill; and Japanese whisky, while not legally beholden to any grain so long as it is malted, is so indebted to the Scotch whisky industry that malted barley is omnipresent. Canada, the only country whose whisky uses the name of a grain synonymously, bucks the trend completely. Legally, Canadian whisky, also known as rye whisky or Canadian rye whisky, need not be made from rye at all (though it often is)…

CONTENT WARNING Contains references to self-harm and suicide. Ask almost any distiller about sustainability and their face will light up. From still heating to cutting road miles for supplies, huge gains are being made when it comes to making whisky ecologically greener. While there is no escaping that it is an energy- and water-intensive process, producing our favourite grains, malts, and blends has never had a smaller footprint. There is momentum here. Ideas are routinely shared between makers. It feels like the industry is on the verge of major scientific breakthroughs from the use of hydrogen to less damaging peat processing. But meaningful sustainability goes beyond the ecological. Ask about social sustainability, and there is far less to say. Really, ‘sustainability’ is a triple-headed beast. The 2002 World Summit on Sustainable…

The Scotch whisky industry has set very ambitious environmental goals, encapsulated in the Scotch Whisky Association’s (SWA) sustainability strategy. Here we focus on how one distiller at the forefront of the implementation of sustainable practices is playing its part in meeting SWA targets. Established in 2006 as a wholly owned subsidiary of ThaiBev, International Beverage (IB) operates as its global business arm, and was previously known as Inver House Distillers. Its Scottish headquarters is located in the Lanarkshire town of Airdrie. The company operates five long-established malt distilleries across Scotland and also owns the Hankey Bannister blended brand. It is best known for its Old Pulteney, Speyburn, Balblair, and anCnoc single malts, while it also runs Speyside distillery Balmenach. According to Alan Mitchell, director of operations for International Beverage, the…

In whisky production, water is more than just an ingredient: it’s essential for creating every batch’s character, ensuring its quality, and shaping its flavour. Consumers may not always recognise the true value of water, with enthusiasts perhaps more likely to focus their attention on grains or barrels, but for distilleries, water is and always has been of paramount importance. Water scarcity, therefore, is never far from the minds of those within the sector — and with good reason. In the 2018 edition of the United Nations World Water Development Report, a collective of experts predicted that by 2050, nearly six billion people — which will equate to 62 per cent of the global population — will suffer from clean-water scarcity. According to Sir David Bevan, former CEO of the UK’s…

Unroll a map of Scotland or any other whisky-making nation and it is fascinating to think about why distilleries chose their locations. For some, it will have been proximity to raw materials, such as barley for malting or clean water, while others may have chosen their location for its easy transport links to get their bottles or casks to customers. For a few, location came down to being hidden from the prying eyes of the 18th-century excise men. Having access to a fuel to heat the stills was another big consideration. In the past, that meant burning wood on a tiny scale for illicit distilling or burning coal to hit the industrial-scale production needed to turn a hobby into a business. Nowadays, the vast majority of distilleries will heat their…

While bourbon can be made anywhere in the United States, Kentucky is the epicentre of America’s native spirit and many Kentuckians believe that bourbon made elsewhere is just not the same. That’s why there is US$5.4 billion worth of capital investment in the Commonwealth’s signature industry right now, which includes several new distilleries, rickhouses, and visitor experiences. In fact, $194 million of that investment alone is going into expanded visitor experiences. However, there is a shadow over this surge of growth. In March, a Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America SipSource report noted a 2.7 per cent decrease in straight whiskey sales over the previous year. Industry experts had long been warning that this was coming. During pandemic lockdowns, off-premise sales of all beverage alcohol, especially straight whiskey, surged far…

Macallan’s new shop-in-shop at Istanbul Airport, Europe’s second busiest hub after London Heathrow, is a must-visit for any traveller with even a passing interest in the Speyside icon. The new outpost joins a growing network of airport boutiques which already extends to London Heathrow, Dubai, and Taiwan Taoyuan. Yet unlike its sister sites, this latest branch allocates around a third of its space for Highland Park. The new open-plan store sits in the middle of the Turkish airport’s massive Heinemann duty-free outlet, one of the biggest anywhere on the planet. As seems de rigueur these days, the Macallan store features a gift-wrapping station and plenty of digital elements, the most eye-catching being a digital profiling tool called Discover Your Expression which enables travellers to find a recommended expression from Macallan’s…

Say the word “Kernza” to 1,000 people and it would be shocking if one person knew what it was. Even for those who are immersed in agriculture, Kernza is a novelty among grain crops that is still widely unknown. When it comes to distilling, corn, barley, wheat, and rye are the chosen children of the whisky family and Kernza is the recently adopted baby who is just learning how to walk. It may take some time, but eventually this grain could find its footing in the industry thanks to its environmental benefits that the other siblings don’t possess. Initially created in the United States at non-profit research organisation the Land Institute in the 1980s, Kernza is a trademarked name for a perennial wheatgrass. Today there are multiple scientists around the…

Imagine growing up within a stone’s throw from the world’s most celebrated and influential whisky-making nation, but having to travel to the other side of the globe to finally discover a deep passion for whisky. Recently wed couple Abbie and Chris Jaume might have once considered this idea ludicrous. Yet, as bizarre as it sounds, that is precisely what led them to a life of mashing and distilling amid the undulating landscape of the Howardian Hills and the bucolic beauty of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. About a decade ago, Chris had just fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming an architect while Abbie was pursuing a career in biomedical science that involved spending most of her time peering through a microscope. “I loved the science part, but I didn’t like…

Grande-Île in the St Lawrence River near Montreal was pristine when the first settlers began arriving in 1789. Located at the St Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers’ confluence, shallow rapids at Grande-Île proved unnavigable to Great Lakes ships. This delayed the island’s industrialisation until the hand-dug Beauharnois Canal opened in 1845. Since then, development has brought many changes, including a typical old Québécois town called Salaberry-de-Valleyfield. By 1875, Valleyfield had transformed into an industrial hub and Great-Lakes-freighters port town that ran with the thrum of machines supplying the country with newsprint from its paper mill and cloth from its textile mill — Canada’s largest. Diversification brought more factories to what was soon one of Canada’s most important 20th-century industrial centres, their smoke-billowing chimneys the polar opposite of today’s hydroelectric generating stations…

From rotary evaporators and ingredients delivered by bike to freeze-dried fruits and even lab-grown herbs, sustainability in bars has come a long way since the early days of banning plastic straws. While drinks may not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think about waste, the environmental impact of bars is surprisingly huge: paper napkins, umbrellas, stirrers, and plastic bottles pile up with packaging from daily deliveries of mixers, tonic, juices, and sodas. Flying citrus around the world just for a squeeze and a twist for garnish adds to the hefty carbon footprint. The same goes for discarded fruits, herbs, cucumber ribbons, coffee beans — all contributing to biowaste. Bars and restaurants are one of the worst offending industries when it comes to reaching for the bin.…

On a Thursday morning in early June, Jay Erisman pointed to a lime-green Jeep sitting in the car park outside New Riff Distilling. “That car is sitting right on top of the well,” he said as he stood in the glass-walled still tower that houses a 60ft, 19-plate (plus three spirit plates at the top) column still. The structure looks out over the lot and a strip of highway in Newport, Kentucky, just outside Covington, which sits on the Ohio River across from Cincinnati. The water source, Erisman continued, is one of several things that make New Riff stand out from the growing number of distilleries in this state, home to the oldest, most iconic bourbon makers. (See: Jim Beam, Buffalo Trace, Maker’s Mark, Woodford Reserve, Wild Turkey, and so…