How is whiskey made?

So how is whiskey actually made? I had no idea before I went on this distillery tour in Dingle a few weeks ago. After the one hour tour, I knew so much more, and really enjoyed the free tasting at the end.

What ingredients go into whiskey?

Water, Barley and Yeast are the only ingredients in Dingle Irish Whiskey. They use huge Vats to mix all of the ingredients together in a process, I outline as best I can from memory below.

Mash Tun

This tank is filled each day with one tonne of malted barley and hot water. Enzymes within the barley then break down the starch into sugar. All the barley they use in the Dingle distillery is 100 per cent Irish.

Wash Backs

These are the fermentation vessels. Each day these are filled with 5000 litres of wort, which is the sugary liquid that was made in the Mash process outlined above. Next yeast is added to the mix. This is what turns the sugars into alcohol.

At this stage in the photo above, the mix is like a really really bad craft beer. The next stage is the distillation. We were allowed get pretty close to the vats, and when you put your nose close to the edge, the alcohol hot the back of your nose straight away and you have to take a step back. Powerful stuff!! Ans you can see it and here it fizzing away as the yeast does its job of turning the sugars into alcohol.

Triple Distilled

I had heard this expression many times before, but I didn't really fully appreciate what it meant. The next 3 processes below explain what it means to be triple distilled, It is basically to do with how many stills the whiskey passes through.

Wash Still

This is the first of the whiskey stills. This still has a short neck that allows more flavoursome esters to be extracted.

Intermediate Still

The next still the liquid passes through is the intermediate still. This still is broad and shallow, which creates a large surface area on the spirit, which allows the extraction of more esters which helps to create a more vibrant, sweet and spicy whiskey.

Spirit Still

The third and final still is called the spirit still. This still has a ball on the neck, which increases reflux. This helps to refine the spirit and create a well rounded whiskey spirit.

This is where the liquid comes out of the stills. As you look at the photo above, the metal pipe is the output from the first still, it then feds back into the second still, and we see the output from the middle metal pipe, and again the liquid is fed back into the third still, after the distillation has occurs for the third and final time.

So do we have whiskey now?

Far from it! But what we do have is pure alcohol and essentially the building block from whiskey, vodka and gin. The alcohol that comes out of the third still can be used to create any of these spirits.

Dingle distillery makes all three, but is most famous for their whiskey. You can make vodka and gin quite quickly, so this helps the distillery with it's cash flow, as whiskey is a different story. To make whiskey it takes a minimum of 3 years!! That's a lot of waiting around.

So where does the whiskey get that dark colour from then?

It gets the colour and indeed some of its flavour from the oak cask, which it sits in for at least 3 years. It makes sense that over the 3 years, the once colourless liquid takes on some of the hue of the cask that holds it. I found this bit really cool and interesting, as I never knew this before.

Aged whiskeys

We hear about 10 year old, 20 year old, 50 year old whiskeys, and that is all related to how long they stay in the oak cask maturing. Amazing stuff.

The best thing about the tour

It was really cool to see how they make whiskey and indeed gin from start to finish, but my favourite part of the tour was... I know what you're thinking, the tasting...

Actually, no, the tasting was really great, but it was not the highlight, the highlight was hearing how they actually started this little micro craft distillery back in 2012.

At that time in Ireland, we were still in recessionary times, people were cautious with their money and banks were not just handing out loans for anything. The guys approached a bank with a great business plan, but it was knocked back, as it was deemed to be too risky. Not put off by this the guys at the distillery decided to try out crowd funding and so the founding fathers were formed..

Who are the founding fathers

They are basically 500 men and women who put forward capital of €5000 each, with a promise of receiving one cask of whiskey each, upon maturation in 2018. The casks were not small either, and contained 40 gallons or 3413 shots of premium whiskey! This allowed the founder Oliver Hughes to raise €2.5 million in capital and they could get the project up and running.

Funny story

There were two brothers who happened to be in Dingle in 2012 and happened to have €5000 spare, but they never told their wives... Imagine their shock when the picture of the founding fathers ended up in the newspapers and their wives found out! :o)

They likely got over it though, as a bottle of Dingle whiskey sells now for anything from €80 to €350 for a half litre... How many of these bottles would be in their casks?

Ok

3.78541 litres in a gallon

40 gallons

500ml bottles

€80 to €350

so the €5000 will potentially become €24,226 to €105,991, so I think the wives will get over it..

Did the brothers learn their lesson?

Well, yes and no...

When the Dingle distillery had another offer to their founding fathers to buy another cask, the guys were in again... But this time, they went with anonymous, instead of their real names, as per sign below... :o)

Hopefully you enjoyed that post.

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Peace Out

Ablaze 🔥