16 February - Auchentoshan

Monday morning saw us off to visit another distillery, this one in Glasgow, although it was a bit of a chore getting to the site.


This piece of equipment weights out the malted barley and grinds it to a find a coarse flour called grist.
As with Glengoyne, Auchentoshan buys it barley already malted, thereby saving money and ensuring a consistent product.

The grist is mixed with hot water in the mash turn, producing what is called wort.

The wort is transferred to the washback, yeast is added and the fermentation begins. Although Auchentoshan is a seven-day-a-week operation, there was no wort fermenting at that time. At Glengoyne, which operates only five days a week, there was wort fermenting in the washback and the guide innocently asked Jeff and Alexander if they would like to smell the wort working. Well, they slowly lowered their heads in and snapped them back like someone had hit them with a cricket back. Both were coughing and blinking theirs watery eyes. Of course I had to give it a try and I found that I couldn't take a breath and it felt like someone has stuck flaming matches up my nostrils. I swore I could smell my nose hairs burning. Of course our guide had a little chuckle over this.

When the wort reaches 5-7% alcohol content it is transferred to the still had heated to 78.5 deg. Celsius. This boils off the alcohol and the vapour rises and is condensed back into a liquid. Auchentoshan triple distills there scotch, arriving at a finished alcohol content much higher than the double distillation of Gelngoyne. What this means to the final product would require exhaustive testing of both products, something I would enjoy making my life's work, or at least whats left of it.

I apologize for the fuzzy image but this is the only photo I have of this equipment. This piece of equipment is padlocked by the federal excise people. All of the condensed alcohol from the three stills passes through these three separate chambers. There is provision made for the testing of the scotch to determine the alcohol content.
The pipes leading into the chambers from the stills are 2-1/2 to 3" in diameter and at the time we were there all were pumping out huge amounts of alcohol.

By law the product of distillation cannot be called scotch until it has aged for 3 years and a day in oak barrels, stored in locked warehouses on the property.
The barrels used are not new barrels, rather they have been used previously to aged bourbon, sherry or wine. Glengoyne actually hires a company in Spain to produce sherry and then send the used barrels to them for use. The guide mention this made the barrels worth somewhere in the range of £400.
Auchentoshan purchases used bourbon barrels from the US. By US law a barrel can only be used twice to aged bourbon, so there is always a supply crossing the ocean.

After the tour of the distillery we entered the tasting room for a wee dram or two. Jeff and I agreed, whoever wins the lottery will build a curved, blond wood bar and keep it well stocked with single malt whisky.

You would think she would learn! Another attempt by Louis to sample scotch. I don't think the scotch even made it to her lips this time.

After our tour it was off to Stirling Castle and parts east.