Needless to say, after last night, we didn’t get up too early this morning. But we still went to the gym for an abridged workout and swam in the pool a little. After showering and getting ready, we walked to the Scotch Whiskey Heritage Centre to eat lunch and then go on the tour. This city is very cool. The buildings are very medieval, not baroque and renaissance looking like Prague.
The tour was really interesting.
Here is our tour guide. They let us taste a whiskey at the beginning of the tour called Teachers, and they gave us glencairn glasses, used to drink whiskey. If you swirl the whiskey around in the glass, once you stop, if a lot of little droplets form fast, the whiskey is light, but if only a few form slowly, it's a heavier whiskey.
We learned all about how scotch is made. It starts with barley that sits around in a malt house for a while to become malted, and they have to shovel it around several times because in order to malt the barley, it has to be wetted, which causes it to germinate, which gives off heat that dries it. Then it gets heated by fire that has peat in it, which helps give it a distinct flavor (only Scotch whiskey and Japanese whiskey uses peat) and stops the germination.
Then the barley is mixed with very hot Scottish water, which apparently is very pure, and is mixed around in a big mixing bowl until it dissolves the barley into sugar. There are four regions where there are distilleries (lowlands, northern region, Seyside, and the islands). The barley and water in each region really affects the taste and smell of the whiskey (the islands are known for the more smoky flavors).
The liquid is then mixed with distillery yeast (a little different from bread yeast), which turns the sugar into alcohol. After this process, there is only about 10% alcohol.
The mixture is then heated in a pot still to separate the sugar and other sediments from the water, and then its condensed back again. The shape of the pot still greatly affects the smell and taste of the whiskey. If the pot still is short, the whiskey will be fuller bodied, but if the pot still is longer, the whiskey will be lighter bodied. After this process, I think there is about 20% alcohol. At some point, it gets to around 40% alcohol, but I can’t remember when.
The whiskey is distilled twice, once in one kind of pot still, and once in another kind (I can’t remember the difference between them). Once it’s distilled, it’s put in oak casks. The casks are either made from American oak, which is white, or Spanish oak, which is red (and sometimes used to be used for aging sherry). The oak significantly contributes to the color, taste, and smell of the whiskey. White oak will make the whiskey lighter and fruitier, while the red oak makes it fuller.
The whiskey has to age for at least 3 years, but most is aged much longer than that. The “whiskey blender” is an expert at smelling the whiskey to determine when the whiskey is at the perfect age (you can tell much more about the whiskey using smell than taste). The whiskey we bought was aged 16 years. When the whiskey is bottled by itself without being blended with any other whiskey, it is called single malt. But it’s also very common to blend many different whiskeys together that were aged in different casks and possibly for different amounts of time.
Here is a model of a distillery:
Here is a model of a pot still (this one is short and fat, rather than long):
There is also a kind of whiskey made from grain. When it is distilled, it is done in a continuous still (see below), which allows them to make much more of this kind of whiskey per year (60 million liters vs. 6 million). This whiskey is much lighter and fruitier.
Grain whiskey is hardly ever sold by itself. Its main purpose is to be blended with malt whiskey. The blends usually have several types of both grain and malt whiskey. If there is an age on the blend, it’s the age of the youngest whiskey in the blend. Usually, after the whiskeys are blended, it is aged in casks for a few months to “marry” the whiskeys.
At the end of the tour, we took a car ride. This is one of the models on the ride.
After the tour, we took a look at the castle and the view of Edinburgh from the castle’s hill.
And then we walked down the Royal Mile back to our hotel, and there was Scottish music playing from somewhere, which was really cool. The Royal Mile is 4 streets together that lead from the castle to the Holyrood House.
Tonight we just ate at Biddy Mulligans again. I got a traditional Scottish dish called Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties. It's basically a layered dish of pig organ mixture (heart, lungs, and liver mixed with spices), then mashed turnips, and then mashed potatoes, with a white whiskey sauce over it. It tasted pretty good, but I didn't really like the turnips (so I took some out), but also the consistency was weird, and I weirded myself out thinking about the pig organ mixture, so I could only eat half of it. Then I filled myself up with nachos :) I'm sure I'll have to go to a Mexican restaurant later this week :)
After dinner, we just took it easy and watched tv in the hotel room. Tomorrow we are going to the castle. Can't wait!
No comments:
Post a Comment