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01 January 2000
Tatlock and Thomson: Third Millennnium Alchemists
By
Gordon Liddell
Wrong. Truth is stranger than fiction. Tatlock and his nephew, Thomson, set up their business in Bath Street, Glasgow, in 1891 and became that city's public analysts. Robert Rattray Tatlock was destined to play a significant part in the 20th century development of the whisky industry. In the early 1900's, the grape louse, Phylloxera, polluted the French vineyards which had been supplying wine and brandy to the British market. When the supply dried up, merchants and publicans escaped ruin by making or supplying various nefarious substitutes, some dangerous to health. A few London boroughs successfully took the offenders to court under the Food and Drugs Act; and then dramatically turned their attention to the grain and blended whiskies which were soaking up the market. The court judgement in their favour, that only pot-still distillations could be called 'whisky', threatened to destroy the entire industry. In panic, the Distillers Company Ltd., an amalgamation of the biggest producers of patent-still grain and blended whiskies, lobbied the Government to set up a Royal Commission to settle the issue. Tatlock, as a chemist and independent analyst, gave evidence which helped to convince the Commission finally in 1909 that both pot-still and patent-still distillation could be called 'whisky'. The Scotch Whisky industry has been expanding ever since, nine out of ten bottles sold today being blended whiskies. Tatlock lived on until he was 92, well pickled, we would hope, with the spirit of his choice by a grateful DCL.
The present company, now owned by Drs Harry Riffkin, James Swan and Jennifer Newton, has found a new home in Inverkeithing, in the stone-built Old Corn Exchange, with its distinctive white arches at the front and at the back, a view to the pillars of the Forth Road Bridge. And, like most successful modern businesses, it operates internationally with spirit, wine, beer and food producers in India, South Africa, Malaysia and America as well as Scotland.
Arguably, the present contribution of Tatlock and Thomson to the success of the whisky industry, is as significant as their predecessor's. Less visible, and more subtle. At a basic level, for example, it does HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) auditing, such as testing for microbiological and physical contaminants in the bottling hall. The company itself is assessed by the national body responsible for accreditation (UKAS) to see that it is meeting the required standards not just in running such tests but in the management systems for processing them. More interesting and important is the contribution made to achieving high quality in the product. Tatlock and Thomson test the malted barley entering the distillery, for both yield and flavour. They do quarterly testing of the source water for the mash, which may come from a spring, burn or town water; and of the reducing water at the bottling stage where they are checking for flavour, and for contaminants such as chlorine which would distort the taste of the whisky.
They are involved also in maximising yield and flavour in the mix of yeasts and in achieving the right proportions of grain and yeasts. In distilling, unlike in brewing, bacteria are not boiled out of the malt; in fact the right proportion of bacteria adds to the fruity flavour, too much spoils it, a judicious balance which is best achieved by analysis. Similar discrimination is required at distillation when the 'middle cut' is made by the stillman to avoid the first and last emanations from the still which are sent back for redistillation. Whisky.s fruity flavours come from compounds called esters which are subtly present at these stages and might be mistakenly eliminated by an insensitive palate. Tatlock and Thomson provide sensory training and testing techniques for the still-men as well as for those who at a later stage are assessing the quality of the maturing product in the glass.
Chemistry is critical in the maturation process. Tatlock and Thomson advise distilleries on sourcing the right kind of wood for the barrels, butts and casks. On the day I was there, Stuart Green, one of their chemists (and a man, incidentally, who lost his taste for whisky by working previously in a distillery!) was working on wood extraction from barrels, identifying which compounds give the whisky the right flavours. Sulphur, for example, which is used in sherry-making to protect the product, may sometimes provide too strong a presence in the cask for the maturing whisky. Or vanillin, which is created when the oak barrel is charred to mature bourbon, can be measured to find out if there is enough to give the whisky extra flavour or to find out how much of it the whisky has extracted. The whisky itself can be sampled to see how well it is maturing; and recomm-endations made about what kind of barrel will speed maturation or improve quality. When problems arise in bottling, Tatlock and Thomson can again assist. For example, too high an iron content causes a green haze: to be eliminated by filtering or by adding dried milk to the whisky!
Warehousing, I slowly realised, is an art of its own. As Dr. Jennifer Newton pointed out, the quality of Scotch whisky derives from Scotland's unique climate; but it can be enhanced by warehousing. Constant temperature and humidity are the vital matters and these are influenced by the position of the barrel: how far is it from the door, how high in the racking? With American bourbon, the warehouses are enormous and heaters are used to control temperature; but, her preference is clearly for warehousing of the kind found in traditional distilleries, with earthen floor and low racking. Whichever it may be, Tatlock and Thomson can advise on how to get the best out of the maturation by changing the size or source of the container or its position in the warehouse.
Having been recently to the Springbank distillery, I asked her about the influence of breeze-blown sea-salt on the casks and the whiskies. She said that what we think of as the smell of the sea probably is not its salt but the many small molecules and compounds that the sea contains. These do affect the casks but probably in different ways and degrees depending on where the distillery is sited.
The whisky-distilling industry is notoriously conservative. The size and shape of the still is thought to be the key to the distinctive flavour of single malts. Some distillers are known, when having to replace a still, to have built not merely an exact replica of the old one but even to recreate its exact bashes and dents! Tatlock and Thomson are also a research institution, constantly seeking new ways to improve the techniques of whisky-making, but Jennifer Newton admits that, unlike wine-makers who are adventurous innovators, distillers will change the habits of the past only under economic or technical duress.
She is even more critical of us, the whisky-drinkers, who, compared to wine-quaffers, are inarticulate in our praise of the dram. We need, she says, to become sensitive and discriminating in exploring the richness and variety of flavours in malt whisky and much more Jilly Goolden. in expressing them. Her great fear is that, if we don't, smaller distilleries will increasingly be amalgamated, swallowed up by King Profit. Jennifer Newton cannot herself be criticised for these inadequacies, she is a member of the Society's Tasting Panel whose descriptions assuredly slip more towards the arcane than the banal.
There is nothing pretentious about Dr Newton or her establishment. On her wall she is certificated as an 'Honorary Cooper' and her plain functional desk has family photographs among bottles of sample spirits of various sizes and colours, a heavy tombe on 'Food Science', computer and telephone, reports and papers. In the labs, computers compete with files, chemistry bottles of various hues with spirit-analysis and water-analysis machines, racks of volumetric flasks with fume cupboards, racks of taped or tagged samples with nitrogen cylinders and tasting glasses.
It dawned on me suddenly that this is the 21st century's equivalent of the medieval alchemist's quest to turn base metal into gold: to transform the colourless spirit of the still into the magical elixir in the glass. A Holy Grail worthy of the search, wouldn't we say?
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