Any distillery still do EVERYTHING themselves/onsite?

[andycat]

Apologies for my "newbie" post. I'm a real ale / microbrewery fan, but want to try.....

I was in the Cairngorms last week, where my ancestors hail from. My family tree says that our family lived in the farm/house that became the original Glenlivet distillery, although never involved themselves.

SO, I had a Glenlivet tour last week, and was surprised (read disappointed) to see how much is automated, bought in, sent out etc in the process, and to see all the distilleries owned by multi nationals etc.

Are there any independent distilleries that still do everything themselves?

For instance, the same day, I toured Black Isle brewery, who grow their own barley, yeast, brew and bottle on site Organically. Are there any similar Malt Makers?!

[GBrough]

Kilchoman is a prime example of doing as much as they can by hand, Bruichladdich is another but last I checked Remy now owns them.

Bruichladdich and Kilchoman are Islay and quite an experience if you are not ready for it. The standard Laddie 10 is unpeated but is still very coastal flavor profile. Kilchoman is a small farm distillery.
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The Laga 16.

It even tastes like an ashtray-WM

[GBrough]

I will explain peat best I can, over in Islay the region where Kilchoman is produced there are not many trees instead they burn peat moss to dry the barley imparting that organic feel and smoke from the burning of the moss, together with the coastal flavors you have one of the biggest marmite drams around.
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The Laga 16.

It even tastes like an ashtray-WM

[William]

Welcome to the SMW forum andycat.

Some of the larger distilleries will still grow some of their own barley on land they own around the distillery but they couldn't possibly grow all the barley they require for production and they couldn't possibly malt the amount of barley they require for production using the floor maltings setup once found at many of the big distilleries. Today most buy in malted barley from malting companies but there are still a few distilleries which malt there own such as Bowmore who malt around 40% of the barley they use, the remainder they buy in from Simpsons maltings. The Balvenie are also still doing some of their own maltings, around 15%.

Most distilleries buy in the malted barley for mainly economic reasons. Also they can easily change the barley they order or order varying peating levels of barley to suit the different malt whiskies they want to produce. It is still good to see a floor maltings in operation and I would recommend visiting The Balvenie or Bowmore if you get a chance.

Kilchoman which is a new Islay distillery grow their own barley and joined the handful of distilleries which still practice floor malting, all parts of the Kilchoman production process is done at the distillery, from the barley to the bottling.

Daftmill, a small farm distillery located in Fife grows its own barley; in fact it also grows barley for other distilleries. It doesn't have its own floor maltings, it sends the barley to Crisp's maltings in Alloa. Everything else is done at the farm distillery or at least it will be when they bottle some of the whisky. It went into production in 2005 and I believe the whisky still won't be bottled for a few years yet.
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There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

[opelfruit]

Springbank also.


They are a Campbeltown whisky distillery and produce 3 different types of whisky on site;

Springbank - their standard offering
Longrow - peated
Hazelburn - tripple distilled


Sprinbank is not chill filtered and of natural colour, even their standard 10 year old.

As far as I'm aware, Spingbank and Kilchoman are the only 2 distilleries that perform every step of the process in making whisky, from start to finish;

They malt their own barley, distill and bottle on the same site. However, they don't grow their own barley, Kilchoman is the only one that does this as well.

Springbank is also family owned and almost all of their output goes into Single malt - very little (if any) is sold off to blenders.



...........also, Kilchoman and Springbank produce outstanding whisky
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"Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough."

[drPete]

It's quite a revealing moment when you realise that your favourite 10 yr old malt is actually at the distillery for a week after production from outsourced barley before going to a huge warehouse for the rest of the time .....
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Talisker 18 - the rest are just details

[opelfruit]

[henrysunset]

It was interesting to learn that many of the big distilleries distribute their warehousing to many different locations. That way they are protected against a whole-warehouse disaster - they still have whisky of the same age stored in several other locations.

It's smart, but definitely diminushes the mystique that most whisky is a deeply artisanal hand-made product.

+1 for visiting Kilchoman, you will learn more at a small family distillery than anywere else.

Enjoy!

[Alexppp]

I have no problem with where the maturing whisky is stocked to be honest, most distilleries have such big output that it would be impossible to have every single maturing cask on site. Also the main contributing factors to the way whisky tastes (distillation and cask selection) are very much a hands-on kind of thing.

[Bookie]

Many of the big distilleries only have limited warehouse storage on site, personally i don't think the location the whisky is matured in Scotland makes any difference to the mass produced core range distillery bottlings.

The temperature in the location where a whisky matures will affect its rate of maturation but as there isn't an enormous difference in temperature throughout Scotland the exact location of maturation will make no difference.

[William]

Springbank was unique in Scotland until Kilchoman came along, they are the only 2 that malts their own entire need for barley.
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There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

[Kenny M]

I have always been a little underwhelmed with most of the whisky produced at Springbank, cant fault it but i have never been inspired to have it as a regular tipple.

[DaneBrooke]

I was at Balvenie a few years back. they almost do it all. They buy their barley, but malt and roast it, all the way through the rest. So they do everything but grow the barley.
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Dane Brooke