Whisky Fundamentals
In principle, Scotch, Bourbon or Irish Whisky hardly differ in terms of production. While the raw materials differ slightly for the different types of whisky, all whisky is made using grain, water and fermentation by yeast. Malt whiskys are produced from malted barley, grain whiskys from cereals such as wheat, rye or oats and bourbon whiskies predominantly from corn.
Yet important differences can be found in the distillation technology used. Scottish malt whiskies have to be distilled in copper stills (pot stills), while large column stills are used for grain and bourbon whiskies. Further differences in whisky production can be found in the storage in oak barrels. Barrels from bourbon and sherry production are generally used for Scottish whisky, while only charred virgin American oak is permitted for bourbon whisky. In addition to the influence of the different whisky barrels, different barrel sizes also have an influence on the later taste of the whisky.
Latest Articles
Getting to grips with the basics of whisky is not essential to selecting and enjoying your next bottle, but the varied history and produciton methods are fascinating and can help guide you on your journey.
A Short History of Beer
Published 19/08/2025
Before copper stills and dunnage warehouses, there was hot mash and cool fermentation. For much of urban history, beer wasn’t just a treat; it was infrastructure—a reliable daily drink when town water could be suspect. This is a historical sketch of how that came to be, and how IPA later extended beer’s keeping power for long journeys. 1) Ancient beginnings: bread you can drink In the grain cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt, beer sat on the bread–beer continuum.
A Short History of Beer
The Bread–Beer Continuum
Published 19/08/2025
The Bread–Beer Continuum Long before modern breweries, grain-eating cultures treated porridge, bread, and beer as points on a single spectrum rather than separate foods. Heat a mash a little longer, bake it, or ferment it—each choice traded texture for shelf life, flavour, and portability. This is the bread–beer continuum in a nutshell, and it sets the stage for the wider story in Beer: A History and the evolutionary angle of the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis.
The Bread–Beer Continuum
Quadruple distillation & Bruichladdich X4
Published 15/08/2025
New to the basics? Start with Whisky production, then the hardware primers on Pot stills, Condensors, and the Spirit safe. For context, compare with Double distillation, Triple distillation, and Mortlach’s selective “2.81 times” in The Wee Witchie. If you’re thinking about columns, see Continuous distillation and What is a Coffey still?. What is quadruple distillation? In batch (pot-still) whisky-making, quadruple distillation means the spirit is effectively run four times through copper.
Quadruple distillation & Bruichladdich X4
Double distillation
Published 15/08/2025
New to the basics of making whisky? Start with Whisky production, then see hardware primers on Pot stills, Condensors, and the Spirit safe. For contrasts, compare with Triple distillation, Mortlach’s selective triple stream in The Wee Witchie & 2.81, and plate columns under Continuous distillation and What is a Coffey still?. What is double distillation? In batch (pot-still) whisky-making, distillation sits between fermentation and maturation. A conventional double distillation has two main runs:
Double distillation
Mortlach’s ‘2.81 times’: the Wee Witchie and an old-school Speyside distillation
Published 15/08/2025
New to the production steps? Start with Whisky production and the basics of Pot stills. For how condensers change texture, see Condensors. Curious how this differs from plate columns? Compare with Continuous distillation. The headline: what does “2.81 times” distillation mean? At Mortlach the spirit isn’t simply double distilled in a neat wash-then-spirit sequence. Instead, the stillhouse splits the output of the wash stills into multiple streams, redistills them on different spirit stills, and then recombines them.
Mortlach’s ‘2.81 times’: the Wee Witchie and an old-school Speyside distillation