THE MAKING OF SCOTCH MALT WHISKY

As any home distiller would know, the making of alcohol is a quite simple process. You only need three ingredients: water, sugar and yeast. Feed the yeast cells with sugar and they will thank you by producing ethanol. Then it’s just a matter of concentrating it by distillation.

Whisky has been made just like that for a thousand years or so. But of course, there are a few things to consider in order to get the real stuff. Pay some extra attention to the use of peat in the kilning, the shape of the copper stills and how they are operated as well as the maturation on oak casks. These are the major factors that decide on how the whisky will turn out in the end. The ways these variables are handled at the distilleries explains most of the differences between their whiskies.