THE KNOWLEDGE
Up in smoke
The waft of peat smoke may be one of the most powerful associations of Scotch whisky. But increasing numbers of international distillers are finding ways to create their local version of ‘peat reek’, reports Tom Bruce-Gardyne
BACKGROUND IMAGE: the barn in which Kyrö smokes its malt with alder wood
“The grain is Irish, as is the peat, and it’s a very different experience to imported peated malt”
Peter Mulryan
For centuries Highland life was infused with the pungent aroma of molasses, damp tweed and burning rubber. Peat smoke would have wafted up from an open fire in every croft, impregnating the walls, and people’s bedding, clothing and hair before curling its way out through a hole in the roof. As it smolders and doesn’t spit, peat is less of a fire risk, and with its sheer abundance it was made for whisky.
The peat reek that now defines Islay extended to most Scotch malts to some degree until the demise of floor maltings in the 1960s. The same would have once been true in Ireland, though perhaps never for Dublin’s famed pot still ‘sipping whiskeys’. But peat bogs are as Irish as Guinness – ‘The ground itself is kind, black butter / Melting and opening underfoot’ to quote Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney in his poem Bogland. So why did other distillers abandon smoke?
“My personal guess is that we industrialised whiskey production quite early on, and it was easier to mass malt in a closed kiln,” says Peter Mulryan, the Irish whiskey writer-turned distiller at Blackwater in Waterford. “It also made it easier to produce a more consistent product, and consistency was what all the Victorian distillers were after.” Once malting had been contracted to the big maltsters, of which there are just two in Ireland, that was it.
When the Kilbeggan distillery created its peated Connemara single malt in the 1990s, the malt had to come from Scotland. That remains true, as it does for Teeling’s recently launched Blackpitts, whose triple distillation “reduces some of the medicinal character you would get from a traditional Scottish peated single malt and allows the more barbeque smoke characteristics to shine,” says the firm’s MD, Jack Teeling.
But at Blackwater, Peter Mulryan managed to track down Irish Craft Malts, a new artisan maltster able to oblige with peated barley and oats. “The grain is Irish, as is the peat, and it’s a very different experience to imported peated malt,” Peter says, having tried the latter. The first Blackwater whiskey is due for release later this year, followed by some peated versions in 2023.
DIY APPROACHES
Years earlier, Bill Lark, ‘the godfather of Australian whisky’, had faced a similar dilemma when he set up Lark distillery in Tasmania in 1992. “We discovered there were some beautiful peat bogs in the Central Highlands of Tasmania, and we had some peat bog experts look at it and confirm it was just like Scottish Highland peat from decayed sphagnum moss,” he says. The question was how to get it into the malt, so a discussion in the pub ensued.
“We talked about bubbling the peat smoke through the mash and all manner of silly things,” he recalls. Eventually, it was decided to build a peat smoker, dampen the malt and let it soak up the phenolics as it dried. “It worked an absolute treat,” says Bill, who describes the results as “like a nicely-peated Highland Park”. Now armed with his own license to extract peat, he hopes one day to have his own floor maltings.
“Blackpitts reduces some of the medicinal character you would get from a traditional Scottish peated single malt and allows the more barbeque smoke characteristics to shine”
Jack Teeling
“There’s old plants, rain, dead people and lots of things that over thousands of years have settled in the ground and are then extracted and put into the whisky.”
Alex Munch
Over in Denmark, in 2005 Alex Munch and friends set about making whisky, though not just any whisky. It was to be their homage to Ardbeg 1977, and that meant smoke, and plenty of it. “We didn’t know shit about making whisky. We googled ‘what is peat?’,” he says, laughing at their guileless, bumbling approach to what became Stauning, now housed in a brand-new distillery and backed by Diageo’s Distill Ventures offshoot.
Shipping in some Islay peated malt would have been far simpler, but Alex and his mates were determined to make life difficult. That meant floor maltings and a trip to the Klosterlund museum of peat, which displays early peat-cutting equipment and a perfectly preserved Iron Age man who had been exhumed from the bog. The curator gave Stauning some peat which “is not like Islay with its iodine, seaweed and salt, but gives you a drier, tobacco, estery-kind of smoke,” says Alex. He marvels at the whole process, saying: “There’s old plants, rain, dead people and lots of things that over thousands of years have settled in the ground and are then extracted and put into the whisky.” For added sweetness, Stauning uses Danish heather, which is laid on the kiln and then covered in peat to dampen down the fire and create smoke.
“We’re now developing a peated variant that’s going to be the third musketeer in our range of rye whiskies, and I see it as this meeting of two giants. You’ll still have the robust, pepperiness of the rye, which then meets with the earthy, almost tarry flavours of freshwater peat.”
Sanna Dooley, Kyrö distillery
NEW FRONTIERS
Instead of heather, Finland’s Kyrö distillery has been smoking its whisky with alder wood in a traditional barn. “It’s a light, crisp passive smoke,” says Sanna Dooley, Kyrö’s brand commercial director. “We’re now developing a peated variant that’s going to be the third musketeer in our range of rye whiskies, and I see it as this meeting of two giants. You’ll still have the robust, pepperiness of the rye, which then meets with the earthy, almost tarry flavours of freshwater peat.” Balancing what she calls “two fairly hefty flavour profiles together in the same product” will be no mean feat for a whisky due for release next year. Apparently, the Finns have a long tradition of heating their homes with peat. “It’s still used to some degree,” says Sanna, “but there’s a lot of lobbying against its use as a source of energy.”
“Our dunnage warehouse is very cold, with high humidity, so we lose a lot of alcohol and also peat. That’s why I want to explore an extra-peated recipe, especially for some older whiskies.”
Lii Johnson, Mackmyra distillery
In Sweden, the land of IKEA, there has always been enough wood to burn instead of peat, claims Lii Johnson, whisky maker at Mackmyra, which released its first peated single malt, Svensk Rök, in 2018. It was created by her predecessor, Angela D’Orazio, with peat from the nearby Karinmossen, or Karin bog, and “to add a further Swedish dimension to the smoky flavour, the glowing peat is seasoned with brittle juniper twigs” to quote Mackmyra’s website.
“If I go by my nose, I’d say it’s medium-peated,” says Lii, who is keen to ramp up the smoke in future expressions.
“Our dunnage warehouse is very cold, with high humidity, so we lose a lot of alcohol and also peat. That’s why I want to explore an extra-peated recipe, especially for some older whiskies.”
For fans of peated expressions, it looks like the non-Scotch options are opening up a whole new world of ‘reek’.