Last times in Scotland Part 1: Elgin

This is my last week in Scotland and it has been a wonderful journey here for the past 5 months.

In this last week the scenery of Scotland decided to give me a last hurrah and show the best of it to me after laying in dormant from January to May. From Orkney to Speyside to Oban, the sun and the greenery was in constant full blast that the weather felt like back home in Singapore than the usual Scotland. (Its considered weird weather in the UK)

ELGIN

Elgin is the whisky capital because there are so many distilleries around it. We went to a cooperage where they make or repair the bourbon or sherry cask where the whisky matures for many years to give it unique aroma. You can see how they work swiftly to repair or expand the size of the cask and conduct testing. It is something that you do not see at other distilleries (which mainly show the same thing as all whisky making processes are the same)

Basically whisky cask are all made from Oak trees either American (grows straighter so its more economical as a larger proportion can be harvested) or Spanish. The american oaks are used to contain bourbons for a couple of years before they are emptied and filled with whisky whereas the spanish oaks are filled with sherry for the same process.

I made this cask myself from the individual pieces of wood! I can be a cooper!

We went to the distillery of Glenfiddich as well. It is the most awarded whisky in the world and has a 50 year old whisky (not the age but the time it has been mature in a cask)!! While I find the the taste of their whisky a little too spicy and strong, it is a free tour with 3 free drams of whisky to try, so its definitely worth going! As I said all whisky tours are more or less the same but if you compare this to the Highland Park distillery that I went to in Orkney, you will notice the difference in production scale of the distilleries as this one is so much bigger (The fact that they can give free tours with 3 free drams of whisky shows how much they are rolling it in. They also bought the surrounding catchment area for their water supply LOL)

To give a summarized process of whisky distilling:
First get your Barley (buying it or growing it) and malt it (soak it in Water for a few hours to start the germination process) and then you dry it by lighting a kiln under it.
Next you grind it into a flour called grist and you dissolve it in water to form wort.
The fermentation process comes after with the addition of Yeast and it becomes like a beer like fluid.
Subsequently we have to distill it (at least twice) to make it clear and the alcohol stronger.
With the correct percentage of alcohol in the spirit (about 67%-70%), you can then start to age the whisky in  the sherry or bourbon oak cask to give it the flavour you desire. After many years (Scotch whisky need at least 3 years to be considered one and are more commonly 10-18 years), they can then be bottled and sold.