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02 July 2010
The sorcerer apprentice
By Robin Laing

Day 1
Monday morning and I reported for duty, ready to gain some real ‘hands-on’ experience of the whisky-making process. I was looking forward to this entirely new experience, but a little anxious at the same time; it seemed ages since I had done any manual graft – had my cushy life as a whisky writer and musician made me soft?

After an introductory talk by production manager David Myles, it was off to the Tun room where I was to spend the first two days.
Chris Kennedy, the duty mashman, was applying the second water, two hours behind schedule; the need to fix a valve in the still-house meant that the washback had not been emptied and could not be re-filled– so the mash had to wait. My first lesson – distilling is a carefully balanced, integrated process and problems at any stage can affect everyone else.

I spent the day following Chris, watching and learning. I also took in the distillery smells – the dry cereal stour of the barley grist in the mill room, the warm engulfing sweetness of the mash, the pungency of fresh yeast and the sharp, sticky fruitiness of the ‘jo’ (otherwise known as wash or ale) – not to mention the nasal whack of CO2 when you stick your nose into a washback.

It was a long and interesting day, most taxing on my legs (from standing and moving around all day) but also my brain; I had previously imagined that the first part of the process would be the easy bit (anyone can make beer, can’t they?), but there seemed an awful lot to learn.

Day 2
My first hands-on job was to empty the draff from the mash-tun. This involves changing the angle of the feet of the rake as it turns by poking them with a very long wooden pole, while peering through the hot and steamy mash-tun door. The feet of the rake then guide the draff down the exit holes in the floor, where it is helped on its way by compressed air.

Next, I had a go at mashing in. This can be a tricky operation; first, all the pre-checks (valves closed, grist flowing, rake in the exact position for the flow to hit it) then ‘under-letting’ – finally the hot water and grist are sprayed in at the same time.

The crucial thing is to get the ‘strike temperature’ exactly right – done by mixing the flow of hot and cold water. The temperature has to be 64.5 degrees, because the conversion of sugars starts right at that moment. The valve controls are not calibrated and so it’s a bit like steering a ship – easy to panic and over-compensate, resulting in the temperature going up and down wildly.

I got there in the end and my first mash looked so beautiful, with a swirl of fabulous colours, like a stirred cappuccino.

Day 3 
I was now in the still-house among the stills, the beating heart of the distillery, watching the clear spirit run through the spirit safe on its way to become drams.

Stillman Gregg Paterson showed me how to ‘bring in’ the wash stills; another tricky little job. Temperature control is crucial to avoid the still boiling over.

Gregg told me it’s a bit like bringing a pan of milk to the boil as he concentrated hard, watching the foam rising up in the viewing window of number two wash still. John Black, the boss at Tullibardine, appeared and I listened attentively as he recalled his anxiety when doing this job for the first time at Cardhu, back in the days before viewing windows and when stills were coal-fired.

“I was petrified,” he laughed, “the only way to know what was going on was to hit the still neck with a wooden ball on a string and listen to the sound. The old stillman got so fed up with me whacking the still that he blurted out, ‘Away, John, you’re makin’ whisky – no playin’ the drums!’”.

Day 4 
A big day for me as it gave me a chance to take control of the stills. I needed help ‘bringing in’ the wash stills, but the spirit stills were more straightforward. It was a particular joy to turn the spirit stills on to spirit run after 10 minutes of foreshots and smell the lovely fruity, spirit odours coming from the spirit safe.

To transfer wash from a washback to the wash charger, I had to go under the operations floor to where the machinery and pipes and valves are located.

This is a part of the distillery visitors never get to see – the shadowy, mechanical under-belly of Tullibardine. Down there, among the pipes and valves, drains and channels, compressors and pumps, where it is dark and damp, and where walking upright is not always possible, you realise that for all the poetry and magic, whisky is about engineering and about moving stuff around in large quantities.

Day 5 
Finally, I was to have my opportunity to go through the doorway above which is written “Wheesht, John and Angels at work”. It was time to enter the warehouse, where yet another fabulous set of smells wrap you in happiness.

John regaled me with stories from his early days in the Cardhu warehouse and cooperage, and showed me how, in those days, he had to ‘lamp and tap’ every cask each week, to check for leaks.

He also showed me how to roll and turn casks, and how to line up and judge its entry into the rack so that each one always stops “bung up”. Then we took the valinch to a series of casks of different types and ages, drawing samples that frothed into glasses with voluminous bubbles. Nosing and tasting these might be a daily chore for John, but it was a glimpse of heaven for me.

At the start of the week, I had been wondering what to expect, but spending time behind the scenes at Tullibardine was a unique and valuable experience.

It was good to have made whisky at last, and to be able to describe the process with a little more authority and I look forward to visiting other distilleries in the future with a much more informed and critical perspective.

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