16 November/December 2020 PHOTOGRAPH BY TREVOR RAAB
Drinks
5
// BY A NDRE W DA NIELS //F
OR A SPIRIT THAT ONLY REQUIRES
three ingredients to make, Scotch gets sur-
prisingly complex. Like wine, each glass
hails from one of several distinct regions
that forms its final f lavor. That terroir
primarily comes from the turf-like mate-
rial that makes Scotch smoke, but it also
shows up in the barrels used for aging. Knowing
your Macallans from your Lagavulins takes some
science, a bit of history, and plenty of tasting.
Scotch’s story starts with peat, a decomposed
plant matter that accumulates over time and com-
presses naturally. One-fifth of Scotland’s land mass
is covered in peat bogs; for centuries, thanks to the
countr y’s lack of forests, Scots used peat to heat their
homes, cook food, and especially make whisky.
Peat comes in during the kilning stage of pro-
duction. Distillers place barley—the grain in every
single-malt Scotch—on a screen above a peat fire
to halt the germination process when the barley
has the greatest amount of sugar for the yeast to
convert into alcohol, says Naomi Leslie, The Bal-
venie East US ambassador. Burning peat produces
smoke, including aromatic phenols that latch onto
the barley as it dries and end up in the bottle, says
Glenfiddich’s U.S. ambassador, Allan Roth.
Because the elements of Scotland’s differ-
ent regions yield unique peats, they leave diverse
notes in their whiskies. Islay peat is dark and bold
due to the swamp-like conditions of the island, so
an Islay whisky may taste salty or like “chewing on
charcoal,” says Benjamin Boice, the single-malt
specialist for nearby Jura. Speyside peat, mean-
while, is softer and earthier, producing lighter,
floral, and grassier whiskies.
These days, though, most single-malt Scotch
isn’t very peated at all. Once trains brought coal
to Scotland, many distillers—except those on
Islay, which didn’t get railways—stopped using
the less-efficient peat as a fuel source and a f la-
vor-driver and began relying on local growing
conditions, blending processes, and maturation
methods to shape their whiskies. All Scotch must
age for at least three years in oak casks, but dis-
tillers can experiment from there: American oak
barrels create vanilla and brown sugar f lavors,
while European oak casks lend notes of molasses,
dried fruits, and baking spices, Roth says.
Barrel size matters—“The smaller the cask, the
more rapid the maturation,” says Rory Glasgow,How to
Become a
Scotch
Supertaster