The Maltman’s Shiel: Of What Value Tradition?

Balvenie Scotch is made using the very same processes as when, in 1893, in the Scottish Highlands, the Balvenie Distillery Company began the first distillations.  The maltmen at Balvenie continue with floor maltings, using a wooden shiel to turn the barley four times each day during the germinating stage.  Peat is still used in the kiln drying.  Coopers (barrel makers) continue employing the same hammers and hand-struck tools to assemble, seal, and tap the oak casks in which the spirits are aged.

To be labeled as Scotch, a whiskey must spend a minimum of three years maturing in oak casks in Scotland.  Most popular Scotch whiskies are aged at least twelve years.  The process for making Scotch involves malting (germinating) barely, drying the malt (using kilns heated and smoked with peat), grinding the malt into grist, and brewing the grist following the addition of water.  After brewing for a while, the mash produces an active sugared juice called wort.  Yeast is added to the wort to begin fermentation.  After fermentation, which produces the alcohol, the mix is distilled to glean the spirits from the water.  Finally, the spirits are matured in oak casks.  The casks are always second-hand—having been used once in making another product (usually bourbon in America).    

It is not unlikely that some smart young lab technician could synthetically produce a blend of multisyllabic whatchacallits to make a cheap form of Balvenie-like Scotch.  Probably, this could be accomplished at a fraction of the present cost.  Robots might mix test tubes in a “malting zone.”  Sophisticated building automation and Ethernet connections may assure the exact temperature and humidity for the mix.  The whole process might take fifteen minutes and the liquid may not rest for a single second. 

Scotch could be produced inside a converted tire factory warehouse in Detroit, Michigan.

Personally—though I am by trade involved in the installation and design of sophisticated control systems—I prefer an actual maltman and his shiel working on my Scotch and turning the grain against the malting floor.  I appreciate the tradition of the malting, fermenting, and aging process.  With each sip of the half-glass of Scotch that I drink most evenings, I taste a bit of the malting floor, of the barrels used in aging, and the peat used for drying.  I sometimes imagine the Highlands.  I see flocks of sheep slowly stirring—like sea foam—against the green waves of land above the distillery.  I hear the echo of the maltmen walking the distillery floors and pushing their shiels across the wooden planks.

I prefer my Scotch as an adventure, not merely a drink.

--Mitchell Hegman

How Scotch is made:  http://www.whisky-distilleries.info/Fabrication_EN.shtml

For tradition, look here:  www.thebalvenie.com