MALT WHISKY

With the Glasgow's widest range of single cask, cask strength malt whiskies selected from over 90 distilleries and a warm welcome at my restaurant – wherever you travel you can be sure to find another customer with whom to raise a glass.

Treat yourself or buy a gift voucher for our fine food and a glass of malt for others.

Some things you maybe didn't know about whisky

• The French drink more Whisky than Cognac

• A famous black inventor by the name of Elijah McCoy earned about 50 patents, the most famous one being for a metal or glass cup that fed oil to bearings through a smallbore tube. Machinists and engineers who wanted genuine McCoy lubricators may have originated the term "the real McCoy." Elijah McCoy was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1843, the son of slaves who had fled Kentucky and died in Michigan in 1929. The McCoy lubricator was copied by many but the slogan used by the company that had the patent rights was that people should get "the real McCoy"

   

• During Prohibition whisky could be legally obtained through a doctor, for "medicinal" purposes. [swa]

   

• The "cup of kindness" in the song "Auld Lang Syne" refers to whisky. [swa]

   

• The SS Politician went down off Eriskay in February 1941. A good fraction of her cargo of up to 50,000 cases of whisky was recovered by the islanders whose ingenuity at evading the Excise was immortalised in Compton MacKenzie's book (later filmed) "Whisky Galore". The whisky was distilled in 1938 and bottles were still being recovered from the wreck as recently as 1990. [cm]

   

• Whisky may not legally be described as such in the UK until it has matured for 3 years. [swa]

   

• In 1994 there were about 2.5 BILLION litres-pure-alcohol of whisky stored in bonded warehouses in Scotland. Allowing that the value of whisky is about £8 per litre of alcohol, that means stocks are worth about £20,000,000,000 at sale.

   

• A single butt (barrel) of whisky contains some 500 litres of spirit. It will lose 1-2% alcohol per annum through evapouration as it matures. Such a barrel of good 15 y.o. malt will therefore contain some 400 litres (600 bottles) and thus be worth some £20,000 at shop prices.

   

• The most expensive bottle sold to date (1994) was a bottle of 50-yr-old single malt which went for £47,000 at a charity auction in Milan. [swa] [they don't say which though bottles of 50 and 60 y.o. Macallan can fetch over £5000 at auction]

   

• The oldest whiskies reported at recent auctions [cm] have been a Dalintober 40 y.o. (1868) which fetched £2,400 and a Dallas Dhu 64 y.o. (1921) which went for around £2,900. Whisky does not mature once bottled and very rarely improves in the wood once past 25 y.o. so these bottles probably have rarity value but not much else.

Making the Malt

Malt Whisky is produced by an ancient process involving only three ingredients: barley, pure soft Highland water, and yeast.

Malting

Barley is steeped in water then allowed to germinate until roots and shoots start to appear. During germination enzymes are produced which can convert the starch in the barley to fermentable sugars. Germination is then stopped by drying the grain, or 'green malt' as it is known, in the malt kiln over a peat fire whose smoke helps to give the final product its peaty flavour.

Mashing

The malt is milled and the ground malt or 'grist' is mashed or mixed with hot water and fed into a mash tun. The soluble starch is thus converted into a sugary liquid known as wort which is drawn off from the mash tun for fermentation.

Fermentation

After cooling the wort is passed into large vessels known as washbacks where it is fermented by yeast into a weak alcoholic solution.

Distillation

The wash is distilled twice in large copper pot stills. The first distillation in the wash still produces a liquid called low wines which is distilled again in the low wines still to produce spirit. At this stage it is the skill of the stillman which contributes to the traditional quality and flavour of his distillery's malt whisky. Only the middle fraction of the second distillation is collected.

Maturation

The newly distilled spirit is filled into oak casks and transferred to a warehouse where it is left to mature for a number of years. During maturation the spirit loses its sharpness, taking on the mellow mature flavour of the full bodied single malt.

Bottling

After maturation the whisky is reduced to the strength required by the addition of soft water. The whisky is then filtered carefully and filled by automatic machines into bottles which are then sealed and labelled. The bottles are then packed in cases for despatch.