0:07

So when I started

0:09

thinking about doing the tire Fire project,

0:12

we were in a meeting and I said, if we were

0:14

talking about some new products, and

0:16

I said, if I could make us a whiskey

0:19

that tasted like straight up poison, should

0:21

I do it? And the agreement was

0:24

definitely, should definitely do that.

0:26

Um and they and I just kind of

0:28

ran with it. Hello and welcome to Saber. I'm Any

0:31

and I'm Lauren Vogelbautman. Today we're

0:33

talking about Scotch. Yeah,

0:35

Scotch. A couple of months

0:37

ago, because we were so timely here at Sabor,

0:40

we got to visit a local Atlanta

0:43

distillery, American Spirit Works, for the release

0:45

of tire Fire. Tire

0:48

Fire, which is a Scotch style

0:50

peated malt whiskey. I

0:52

got to take a tour, try a sample, and

0:55

they let us interview them.

0:59

I think that was a smart decision. I think

1:02

it. I think it was for everyone involved. I think

1:04

so we had a good time. We did. And

1:06

the voice you just heard was Justin Manglets,

1:09

the head distiller at a s W distillery.

1:13

We also got to speak with Chad Ralston

1:15

are possibly Chadwick Ralston.

1:18

He a little hard to Pendel

1:21

what he actually does. But according

1:23

to their website, he is the chief a

1:25

Corn Officer and Token Millennial

1:28

and Certified Specialist of Spirits

1:31

Chief Acorn Officer. Yeah,

1:34

but the thing is he I mean he also he

1:36

also does their marketing, so I suspect that he wrote

1:39

that copy. So that's on him,

1:41

Chad, look at your life in your choices. We're

1:43

trying to help you out here. You'll

1:46

be hearing more from both of

1:48

them throughout this episode. Note they

1:50

are not a sponsor. It was just a cool thing we got to do.

1:52

Yeah. I think I mentioned

1:54

before on the show that my

1:57

grandparents were big Scotch drinkers, and when

1:59

I was little, I would go visit their

2:01

house and they would ask me to go make

2:03

them drinks. But

2:05

I didn't know, Like I

2:08

I thought it was just some type of juice. But

2:10

I was definitely bringing my grandparents Scotch

2:13

at a young age. That's

2:15

fine, as long as you weren't drinking, that's

2:17

okay. It was their very special juice.

2:20

I wasn't supposed to have any

2:23

but I recently have gotten into

2:25

Scotch after a trip

2:27

to Scotland, which surprised the Frize.

2:30

I did get to try a lot

2:32

of scotch. Um. I went on this Scotch

2:34

Whiskey tour and it was so cool.

2:36

It had a ride there

2:38

was like it was big bubbles.

2:41

Which distillery was that. It's actually

2:43

not a specific distillery. Um.

2:45

It's called the Scotch Whiskey

2:48

Experience in Edinburgh and

2:50

it is the largest collection of Scotch

2:52

whiskey in the world, I believe.

2:55

And I have some pictures and some videos. I meant to bring in some

2:58

props to show you, Lauren, but I forgot. It's

3:00

okay, I forgive you this time, just this time. Yeah,

3:03

Um, I I relatively,

3:05

I don't may maybe about seven years ago I started getting

3:07

into into scotches and started,

3:09

I mean, it's it's it's overwhelming. There's so many different

3:11

kinds and there's so many different strong flavors involved.

3:14

Uh. We touched on a little bit

3:16

about scotch in our episodes about

3:19

New Year's traditions and about bourbon

3:21

or you know, whiskey and cheersing. Yeah.

3:24

I actually have a really funny memory of this because

3:27

we had just done that episode

3:29

and then I randomly had to go to

3:32

South Africa for work with

3:34

one of our coworkers Ksey Pigram,

3:37

who's kind of quiet um

3:39

on the quieter side. He's hilarious, but he's

3:41

you know, oh yeah, he saves it. Yes, and

3:44

uh. I had had this huge blowout fight

3:46

with several of my family members and had to leave

3:49

straight from that and get on the airport, and

3:51

I had in back of my head I wanted to do all these New Year's

3:53

traditions that we talked about in the episode. And I

3:55

remember I made Casey and bless

3:58

him, he came along with me. I was like, I've

4:00

got to go get some scotch, and

4:03

I was telling him all about my family drama.

4:06

It's always one of those memories that looking back is very

4:08

funny and kind of special,

4:10

but at the time was a little bit traumatic.

4:13

Yeah. I was in a random bar in South

4:15

Africa drinking Scotch with a coworker

4:17

under years. Well, that's

4:19

not Casey is a lovely human with

4:22

on New Year's he is. But alright, alright,

4:24

alright, alright. This brings us to our question scotch.

4:29

What is it? Well,

4:32

Scotch is a liquor made in Scotland

4:35

from distilled, fermented smoked

4:37

grain broth. It's

4:40

aged in oak barrels, which gives it it's a characteristic

4:42

color and allows further flavors to develop,

4:45

and the result is a tawny

4:47

brown liquor with a minimum a baby that's

4:50

alcohol by volume of with

4:52

flavors that can range, but for

4:55

example, smoke, earth wood,

4:57

vanilla, fruit, herbs, spices,

4:59

not honey, brine, and possibly

5:02

more smoke. They can be quite smoky.

5:04

Oh. Scotch style whiskeys

5:06

are made all over the world, including here in Atlanta,

5:09

but actual Scotch from Scotland is regulated

5:11

by the Scotch Whiskey Association. Of

5:14

course, there

5:16

are a lot of tutorials

5:18

online I found about how

5:20

to enjoy scotch. It

5:22

can be served us straight or neat,

5:24

or with ice on the rocks, or

5:27

you can open it up or cut it

5:29

with a little bit or a lot of water.

5:32

In Japan, it's common to add a decent amount

5:34

of water. A very popularly

5:36

reported study published in found

5:39

that, like legit, adding a little bit of water to scotch

5:41

improves the aroma and the taste. Using

5:44

computer simulations, the researchers found

5:46

that the dilution with a little bit of water brings

5:48

some of Scotch's flavor compounds to the surface

5:50

of the drink, allowing you to experience them

5:53

more directly. In

5:55

Madrid, it's often mixed with ice and

5:57

cola. In Shanghai, cold green

6:00

eat and ice and scotch is a popular drink

6:02

and there's a whole tasting process. This was part

6:05

of my materials that I forgot to bring that

6:07

has that you know, the special glass and you're

6:09

like to swirl and

6:11

basically you look at it, smell it, and

6:13

taste it, but more detailed, because that's what

6:15

you do with everything generally.

6:18

I'm trying to like simplify it. I'm like, m I

6:22

think I lost some of the extra

6:24

stuff here. But that's okay. That's

6:26

that. Those are the basics. That's all right. Maybe we

6:28

can do a whole video. Oh

6:31

that would be great. Oh I miss videos.

6:34

Okay, let's think about it all right. But

6:36

meanwhile, let's break down that creation process

6:39

a little bit, because understanding how scotch is made

6:41

is going to help with some of the terms we're gonna be throwing around

6:43

for the rest of this episode. So, Okay,

6:46

you're making scotch. You take some grains,

6:49

probably mostly barley, and you probably

6:52

malt them Malting is a

6:54

process by which you break down some of the starches

6:56

in a grain into sugars, which

6:59

is important when you start the fermentation process

7:01

later on, and you do this by encouraging

7:03

the grain to start the German nation process.

7:05

Grains are seeds, remember, which are just

7:08

we condensed lockets of potential.

7:10

Justin talked about it a little bit, So malt

7:13

can be really any type of grain,

7:15

but in this case barley that has been

7:18

germinated by soaking it in

7:20

warm water and letting it sit so that it

7:22

sprouts, just like you would start a seed at home

7:24

in your garden. And in that

7:26

process, in the sprouting process,

7:29

the complex starches in the grain

7:31

simplify and the bonds break

7:34

and they become simple starches, and

7:37

the process creates a diastatic enzymes

7:40

in the grain which

7:43

are capable of converting

7:45

those starches into sugar if heated

7:47

up to the right temperature for the right amount of time.

7:50

So when you sprout

7:52

that barley to malt it, or sprout anything to

7:54

malt it in order to make it shelf

7:57

stable so that it can be stored for a period of

7:59

time and used by brewery or

8:01

distillery or whatever, you have to dry

8:03

it out. Historically that was

8:05

obviously not done with natural

8:08

gas. So in

8:10

different places they use different things. Would would

8:12

have been very common um with

8:17

lasers in Taiwan, that's

8:19

what that's what makes different. So

8:22

yes, given the right conditions temperature

8:24

and lighten moisture, enzymes in a seed

8:26

of grain will start converting the compact starch

8:29

there into sugars, which other enzymes

8:31

will use energy from to start building cellulose,

8:34

you know, the structural stuff that roots and stems are made

8:36

of. When you multi grain, you stop the process

8:38

after the starch is broken down into sugar by

8:40

drying it out. And in the case of Scotch, this

8:43

is where pete comes in, which

8:45

brings me to a question what

8:47

is pete and why is it in my Scotch?

8:50

Pete is the fuel most often used to

8:52

create heat to dry out malted barley.

8:55

For Scotch. We've got another

8:57

quote from justin here in Ireland it

9:00

was forested, originally forested.

9:03

They used would traditionally Scotland

9:05

even before the English cut down all the

9:07

trees that were there didn't have a lot of trees.

9:09

They mainly used pete, which is

9:12

essentially petrified mud

9:15

from a bog, and when you

9:18

burn that to create heat, obviously

9:20

it's also creating smoke, and that in

9:22

the process of using the heat to dry the

9:24

barley, that smoke infiltrates

9:27

the husk material of the barley

9:30

and gives it the very peat

9:32

smoky flavor. So

9:35

that's basically where the peat comes in. And

9:37

the different levels of

9:40

um smokiness in the malt

9:43

are governed by the amount

9:45

of peat, the type of pete

9:47

that are used to smoke the grain o

9:49

Man pete is pretty cool. Like as far

9:51

as partially decomposed stuff goes,

9:54

it's up there. It's way up there. Yeah,

9:56

So what happens is, Okay, you've got a bog

9:58

like a wetland area. Yeah, moss

10:01

and other vegetation will grow and die,

10:03

and if the area is wet enough and the temperatures

10:06

are cool enough, then new growth

10:08

will press the dead stuff down into

10:10

the mud, and you'll wind up with that vegetation

10:12

that moss slowly decomposing

10:15

and compacting more or less on

10:17

its own without much help from microbes because

10:19

the water cuts off microbes primary source of

10:21

oxygen, and the temperatures aren't warm enough

10:24

for microbes to thrive, and

10:26

the flavor that these peat

10:29

fires add is literal terroir

10:32

u. Large bricks of it are cut out

10:34

of bogs and dried and then used

10:36

to smoke malt um. Some of the places

10:39

it's cut from have been at work producing this stuff

10:41

for five thousand years. If

10:45

you're curious about the name, tire

10:47

fire of the Scotch

10:49

that we got to try, Uh, it works

10:51

on two levels, the rubbery,

10:54

smoky flavors in the Scotch and

10:56

the possibility to be a disaster.

11:00

Yeah, there's a lot of It's a really self

11:02

deprecating kind of thing here. They actually

11:04

were hoping to minimize the rubbery flavors

11:07

in their Scotch style product. Those

11:09

flavors come from a group of compounds called

11:11

creas soles that can come from pete smoke.

11:14

Creat Soles are used in the manufacture of lots

11:16

of products because they're good dissolvent. They

11:18

show up and everything from band aids to Sharpie's

11:21

to lysols. So if you've ever smelled

11:23

scotch and went like, oh man, that smells like band aids,

11:26

you weren't wrong. You aren't wrong.

11:28

No, and don't

11:31

be deterred. No,

11:34

no, no, no no, there's nothing inherently like poisonous

11:36

about it, although it can smell a little bit like poison.

11:38

As they were saying at the top of the episode, Yeah,

11:41

there's this air of experimentation about

11:43

it that I love. So it's just this

11:45

idea it could be a tire fire, and

11:48

that's just what they started calling it. I'm

11:50

a fan of the name. Me too, Me too.

11:53

Okay, So back to the process here. So

11:55

um, So, you dry out your malt, probably

11:58

with pete fire, and then you grind them and

12:00

mash it. That is, you you cook it with water to

12:02

help release all of those sugars. The

12:05

solids are separated out, and the liquid, called

12:07

the wart, undergoes fermentation,

12:10

which means that you add yeast. The

12:12

yeast eats a lot of those sugars and excretes

12:14

alcohol and flavor and carbon dioxide

12:17

yeast food. Yeah.

12:23

The resulting wash that you get out

12:25

of that is maybe eight percent alcohol

12:27

by volume. If you stopped here, you'd

12:29

have like, probably not really great beer. But

12:32

we're making whiskey. So we move on to distillation,

12:35

in which you concentrate the alcohol by

12:37

separating it out from some of the water.

12:40

And this is possible because alcohol evaporates

12:42

at lower temperatures than water does. You heat

12:44

the whole liquid to below waters

12:47

boiling point, and the alcohol will vaporize

12:49

and can be collected. Some

12:51

of the water and the flavor molecules

12:53

can come along for the ride. So after one run

12:56

through still you're dealing with a product

12:58

that's about b V. After

13:00

a second run it's maybe like a

13:03

b V, although legally you can

13:05

keep distilling it all the way up to you

13:12

would probably cut that before you sold it, probably

13:17

probably I'm I'm like greatly

13:20

condensing the process here. Also, um,

13:22

and I didn't mean for that to be a pun, but there

13:24

we are. Um. It's a really complex

13:27

chemistry experiment making whiskey.

13:29

During distillation, you're carefully controlling

13:31

your temperatures and watching what gets

13:33

collected throughout the process, because all

13:35

sorts of different compounds vaporized as slightly

13:38

different temperatures. You're looking to collect,

13:40

like the tasty ones from round about the middle

13:42

of the process. Some of the stuff from

13:44

the end of the process actually gets pushed back

13:47

into every new batch. So there's a little bit of a

13:49

circle of life, a circle

13:52

of scotch, circle of scotch, circle

13:54

of whiskey. That sounds like a bad drinking

13:57

game, tell

14:00

you some variation of it, yep,

14:05

like in college

14:10

goodness. One

14:12

other factor here, not in Lauren's

14:14

college drinking times, but in

14:17

the distillation process is um that if

14:19

you're using a still that's made from copper,

14:22

which is the traditional thing, partially because

14:24

it's easy to get copper out of the ground and it's

14:26

easy to manipulate it into like strong

14:28

but complex shapes, you're also

14:31

adding flavor through a copper

14:33

still. Copper is a reactive metal.

14:35

It can catalyze reactions between some

14:38

of the compounds in your wash, It can

14:40

bind to other compounds,

14:42

and it can oxidize others. Yet, some

14:45

of the fruity flavor compounds and Scotch

14:47

are created by reactions with copper, and

14:50

there are also some like rowdy or sweaty

14:52

flavors that are suppressed. Good

14:55

times all around. Yeah. Once

14:58

it's distilled real like scotch

15:00

from Scotland, is then aged for at least three

15:02

years in oak barrels. Often these

15:05

days previously used American

15:07

sharred oak bourbon barrels are used

15:09

um as bourbon distillers

15:12

must and or like to use fresh barrels

15:14

for every batch, and as the

15:16

scotch ages in these barrels, it pulls

15:18

color and flavor compounds from the wood

15:20

and uh kind of concentrates

15:22

and mellows as various compounds

15:25

soak into the wood and or evaporate

15:27

out. At bottling, distillers

15:29

may dilute the scotch with water to bring

15:31

the final product down to a minimum

15:33

of a b V, though

15:35

it can be bottled much higher at the maker's discretion.

15:38

Scotch labeled cask strength might be like

15:42

a m hmmm, Well

15:44

that's distilling in

15:46

a bottle, but

15:50

it doesn't in there because there there's not a

15:52

lot of types of scotch. Oh there are, and

15:55

we will get into those after we take a quick break

15:57

for a word from our sponsor, and

16:08

we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank

16:10

you. Tell me as this ever happened

16:12

to you. You've been in the store, You've

16:14

thought to yourself, I want to try some scotch,

16:17

show them in. We're overwhelmed

16:20

by the labels and numbers

16:22

of types. There are so many

16:24

different words on those labels, and I don't know

16:26

what they mean. Well, I mean I do now because I just

16:29

researched it. But could you share

16:31

this knowledge, yes, I'd be happy

16:33

to. Okay, so single

16:35

malt might have seen that on a

16:37

thing. This means that the scotch

16:39

in question was made at a single distillery

16:42

and that the grain that went into it is nothing

16:44

but malted barley. For products other

16:46

than like scotch from Scotland Scotch, the

16:49

malted grains could be things other than barley,

16:51

but nothing but barley in Scotland.

16:54

For a single malt, okay, if

16:56

it's a single grain that's

16:58

still from a single distiller, but not

17:01

entirely from malted grains. Back

17:03

in the creation part of the podcast, I

17:05

was talking mostly about multi barley, but you can

17:07

totally use barley or wheat

17:10

or corn or confusingly

17:12

for the single grain label. A blend of

17:15

multiple a blend of multiple

17:18

single grains anyway,

17:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's from a single distillery. Single

17:22

means single distillery. And yes,

17:25

However, do note that um,

17:28

either single malt or single grain Scotches

17:31

can still be blended after

17:34

distillation and aging, as long as

17:36

the whiskey all comes from the same distillery.

17:40

Single means single distillery, got it, Yeah,

17:43

blended Your scotch

17:45

might just say blended um

17:47

and Okay, Blended scotches are inherently

17:49

collaborative. Different scotches

17:52

are collected from more than one distillery and combined

17:54

by a master blender. If

17:56

the word blended appears with no further modifiers,

17:59

it is a blend of single malt

18:01

and single grain scotches.

18:04

If it's called blended malt, then the

18:06

scotches and the blend are all single malt.

18:10

And if it's called blended grain, then the

18:12

scotches in the blend are all single

18:14

grain. Makes

18:16

sense? Clear? Is peat? Clear?

18:19

Is peat? I mean basically, what we're

18:21

telling you is if you want to experiment,

18:23

there's a lot of experimentation for you to find out

18:25

what you like. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that there's a

18:28

lot made of single malt scotches.

18:30

But it's not to say that any blended ones are

18:32

bad. Um. I mean, you know, it just might

18:34

be a different flavor experience. Some of them might in fact

18:37

like wines, like blended wines. Some of they might even

18:39

be more flavorful

18:41

or smoother than any single whatever

18:44

product might be. I don't know. It's nice

18:46

to experiment, to see what different distilleries are doing

18:48

and to see what they do together. Don't

18:51

judge a Scotch by its label less,

18:55

that's how you want to judge your stoff. You

18:58

can you can quote me on that. That's

19:01

a T shirt. I think so. All

19:04

right, speaking of all these types of Scotch,

19:07

how the heck do you spell

19:10

whiskey? Who? Well, if

19:12

it's Scotch whiskey in

19:14

Scotland, and in

19:16

Scotland, England and Canada it's

19:18

Scotch whiskey with no E and

19:20

whiskey and no scotch

19:23

either, but specifically whiskey here. And

19:25

the stuff made in Ireland and the US

19:28

is Scotch whiskey with any I

19:30

always spell it with an E. I suspect

19:33

I would be judged harshly. Chad

19:36

has a probably apocryphal, but very

19:38

fun story about why this spelling

19:40

difference exists. There's a little bit of a

19:43

little bit of lore around the whiskey

19:45

with an E and whiskey without any spelling

19:47

of whiskey. And the best explanation

19:50

I've heard is that the

19:52

Scottish label printers dropped the hundreds

19:55

of years ago because it wasted ink, and

19:57

so they were being I

20:00

that's true if we talk about

20:02

Scotch numbers, alright,

20:05

sort of related to that types of Scotch

20:08

thing. There are also five areas

20:10

of Scotch production in Scotland Spaceside,

20:14

Isla, Campbelton or possibly

20:16

Campbelltown, Lowland and Highland

20:19

and these labels can only appear on

20:21

whiskey is produced solely in that

20:23

region. Yeah, those are the areas with

20:25

legal protection for using those

20:27

names like Champagne. Um. You

20:30

may have also heard of Islands Scotch

20:32

uh that in space Side are I both

20:34

actually subdivisions of Highlands

20:36

UM. Each area tends to produce pretty

20:38

distinctive Scotches due to use of specialized

20:41

ingredients and processes. And

20:44

Scotch is big business, especially

20:46

as you might imagine for Scotland. A

20:48

report from twenty twelve found the annual gross

20:51

revenue comes out to four billion pounds.

20:54

Three point four five billion is

20:56

from exports. The Scotch whiskey

20:58

industry employees ten thou and Scottish

21:00

people and thirty five thousand jobs

21:02

on top of that. But it's

21:06

still got a lot of room to grow. Here's

21:08

justin Yeah, so whiskey whiskey

21:10

is it's it's kind of strange.

21:14

It's still very segmented.

21:16

Like there we still get people coming in that say,

21:18

oh, I only like bourbon, And there are

21:20

plenty of people that say I only drink I loved

21:23

heavy pewated whiskeys. But nobody

21:25

goes to a restaurant and they're like, I only

21:27

eat hamburgers, Bring me

21:30

ribs. If you don't have ribs, I'm leaving. I only eat

21:32

ribbs, you know. And we're still in that realm

21:35

with a lot of spirits consumers

21:37

in the whiskey world, and we are we want

21:39

to be able to offer

21:41

a wide array and also expand people's

21:43

horizons, just like the brewery the craft breweries

21:46

were doing fifteen years ago, ten years ago.

21:48

Speaking of expanding horizons,

21:52

we have some Scotch history for you.

21:55

Yes, but first we have a quick break for

21:57

word from our sponsor and

22:08

we're back, Thank you. Sponsored than the

22:10

history of Scotch. Easy

22:13

peas right, oh yeah,

22:15

simple, there's an

22:17

easy pizza joke in there somewhere that

22:20

that was it. It was bad. Moving on.

22:23

Distillation probably arrived in Scotland

22:25

via missionary monks in the fourth and fifth

22:28

centuries. See. By

22:30

the fifteen century CE, distillation

22:33

and the spirits that resulted from them

22:35

could be found a cross Europe. The

22:38

first written record of Scotch production

22:40

comes to us from some tax records.

22:43

YEP. The X

22:45

Checker rolls a k ye olden

22:48

tax records. It said

22:51

eight bowls of malt to Friar John

22:53

Core, wherewith to make Aqua

22:55

vitai, or the water of

22:58

life. This, by the way,

23:00

was enough to make around fifteen

23:02

thousand bottles. So it seems

23:04

that by this time making Scotch

23:07

was fairly common. I don't

23:09

think they went from zero to if

23:12

they did. What a party, What a party?

23:15

Very experimental. You know, I got this

23:18

new thing. I'm gonna make fifteen bottles of it. I think it's

23:20

gonna be great. Although

23:23

this would probably have been a very bad party,

23:25

because probably this stuff

23:28

was way stronger than what we're used to and

23:30

possibly even dangerous, a little

23:32

bit hazardous, a little bit. It

23:34

was also primarily, if not entirely

23:36

Multipski. Records

23:39

from show that King James the

23:41

Fourth ordered aquavi tie.

23:43

It was believed to be medicinal, and people

23:45

took it for a whole host of

23:48

things, prolonging your life,

23:51

easy, colic palsy,

23:53

and smallpox. It became

23:55

a big part of tradition and social life in Scotland,

23:57

as we touched on a bit our New Year's traditions episod

24:00

zode. You offered it to guess

24:02

when they arrived. It was something you drank to keep

24:04

away the cold. It was a very social

24:07

Yeah. Scotch was being made

24:09

all across Scotland by the seventeenth century.

24:12

Beckard show it popped up at funerals and was

24:14

noted at more than one breaking

24:16

an entering. It was just like there were scotch

24:18

there, or scotch was involved, I'm

24:21

not saying. But in

24:24

sixteen ninety we get the first known

24:26

mention of a distillery Frontosh

24:29

of Culloden in the Acts of Parliament,

24:32

but there were almost certainly

24:34

distilleries operating prior to that. Tax

24:37

records. Again with the tax records

24:39

show the excise Act of the Scottish Parliament

24:42

called for a tax on every

24:44

pint of aqua vitai or other

24:47

strong liquid. The Act

24:49

of Union with England and seventeen o seven

24:51

drove a lot of distillers to making

24:54

and selling their stuff illegally, and

24:56

this led to a lot of skirmishes

24:59

between the tax collectors

25:01

also called gaugers, and the distillers

25:03

who found that these taxes made staying

25:06

in business impossible, and the laws

25:08

were written in a language that wasn't

25:10

their own. Scott smuggling became

25:13

huge. For a century and a half, it

25:15

was the norm. By seventeen eighty there were

25:17

eight legal distilleries and four

25:20

hundred illegal ones. Ministers

25:23

of the Church of Scotland sometimes made space

25:25

for storage of scotch in

25:28

their pulpits and would occasionally transport

25:30

it in coffins. Stills

25:33

were hidden in the hills, and smugglers

25:35

had a system for signaling each other about

25:37

excise officers in the area. More

25:40

than half the product was illegal,

25:42

and in the eighteen twenties and

25:45

the eighteen twenties saw the closing of fourteen

25:47

thousand illicit stills a year.

25:52

The government was doing its damnedest

25:54

to regulate the whiskey business, but illegal whiskey

25:56

was all their age in the eighteenth century. It reached

25:59

a point that in eighty three the

26:01

government passed another excise Act,

26:03

one that outlawed small stills and collected

26:06

a per gallon tax and licensing

26:08

fee for larger distilleries. This

26:10

did the trick after a bit. Meanwhile,

26:15

wooden barrels made by Cooper's

26:17

in Scotland and the rest

26:19

of the now United Kingdom had become

26:22

expensive. Most of the oak in the area

26:24

had been going to making all those ships

26:27

that made England such a powerhouse during globalization.

26:30

France, though, which had greater land

26:32

resources and had started a forest

26:34

conservancy program in the mid sixteen hundreds

26:36

helpful, was making lots of barrels

26:38

for its wines and fortified wines like port

26:41

and sherry. So as

26:43

treaties in the early eighteen hundreds started allowing

26:45

greater trade between France and the UK.

26:48

More of these wine products wound

26:50

up in UK ports, where they would be bottled

26:53

for sale. At Port, the spent

26:55

barrels were up for sale and Scotch distillers

26:58

bottom up. These barrels needed us

27:00

lightly sweeter, darker Scotches as

27:02

they drew compounds from the wood and from the wine

27:05

that it had previously held in

27:09

one Anus Coffee's invention of the

27:11

patent or Coffee still allowed

27:14

for continuous distillation process,

27:16

which in turn led to grain

27:19

whiskey and the new milder

27:21

flavored whiskey boosted Scotches sales

27:23

outside of Scotland. So

27:27

did the decimation of France's

27:29

vineyards in the eighteen eighties by the

27:31

felix era Beato, which we've talked about in

27:34

Champagne and also some other alcohol

27:36

related episodes. A huge absent.

27:38

Yeah, it's part of why absent got so big as well,

27:41

right, because there was no more wine because

27:44

this American beetle was like, s up, gonna

27:47

blight your wine, grapes, No

27:50

American beetle. No. But

27:52

this was good news for Scotch because people started

27:54

stubbing out brandy for Scotch.

27:57

And when bourbon distill

28:00

lation really kicked off after the American

28:02

prohibition ended in the nineteen thirties and

28:04

new laws dictated that bourbon be

28:07

aged in new barrels for every batch,

28:09

American bourbon barrels, like once

28:12

used bourbon barrels, flooded the barrel

28:14

market simultaneously a port and sherry.

28:16

We're losing popularity in the United Kingdom, so

28:18

fewer of those barrels were being imported.

28:21

The Scotch aged in bourbon barrels is

28:24

more like what we're used to today. It's a little bit lighter

28:26

in flavor and color, with more of the vanillas

28:28

that are so common in bourbon. It really

28:31

changed the industry. Yeah,

28:33

and there's a. It's a whole big world out

28:35

there of Scotch and oh goodness, this is

28:37

yeah, just glancing glancing off the surface.

28:40

If you've been intimidated by it, um

28:43

or if you've had some but one

28:45

experience was bad, I would say,

28:48

through some experimenting, Um yeah

28:50

interested, absolutely, yeah, try try some

28:52

others, like maybe maybe look up look

28:55

up some of the common flavor profiles

28:57

of those different areas

29:00

of Scotch production and pick the

29:02

ones that sound like you wouldn't hate them.

29:04

Yes, that's a good starting point. Always

29:07

a good starting point. And um,

29:09

thank you to a s W

29:12

Distillery and Justin and Chad for

29:14

speaking with those Oh absolutely yeah, we um

29:16

we only used most of what we talked about

29:18

with them was pretty specific to what

29:20

they are doing at their distillery, which is actually

29:23

very fascinating, um in terms of

29:25

how they're using a blend of

29:27

traditional processes and ingredients and

29:30

their own like just what's working

29:32

for them um out of either necessity

29:35

mostly necessity necessity, or or just

29:37

what they like. And it's a great

29:39

story. And we're going to be releasing

29:41

the rest of that interview as a bonus episode

29:44

for y'all to enjoy as well. Yep,

29:47

just in time for the holidays. Unless you're listening

29:49

to this at any other time then

29:52

still maybe, Yeah, I mean just

29:54

in time. How do we define that? Really?

29:58

And yeah, be on the lookout for tire fire

30:00

in stores or see if you can

30:03

order a bottle. I'm they are not paying you to say

30:05

that. I have just been very much enjoying

30:08

a bottle myself, so I don't know. It's

30:10

very good for it's very smoky. It

30:12

is very smoky, I mean fires in the night.

30:15

Yeah, and that one of the reasons I

30:17

liked having it. We had it at our dn D session

30:20

one time is because, as I've said, there's

30:22

always a theme and usually

30:24

are our sessions fire.

30:29

Way to put what happens, yes

30:32

going poorly is yeah,

30:36

yes, But anyway, this

30:38

brings us to the end of our

30:40

Scotch episode and to listen

30:44

normalal Yes,

30:47

that's what I meant to do in the eggnog episode

30:49

and then completely failed. It's

30:52

a cheer thing. It's cheers, It's a cheers

30:55

Mary wrote, I'm currently doing a semester

30:57

abroad in Scotland and yes, Haggis

30:59

is everywhere. One of my roommates is from England,

31:02

so of course we had to have a Christmas pudding,

31:04

since the rest of us had never had one. We

31:07

just bought a ready made one rather than attempt

31:09

to make one. After drowning it

31:11

in brandy and drinking a bit, we

31:13

happily lit it on fire. I've

31:16

attached a video where you can hear my happy, tipsy

31:18

yay's. Sadly, I had not drunk

31:20

nearly enough to stomach actually eating it,

31:22

and promptly spit it out and handed my roommate

31:25

the rest on my plate. In my opinion,

31:27

Christmas pudding should be burned like a candle

31:30

rather than actually eaten. Sorry Britt's,

31:32

but fruit cake is gross,

31:34

followed by many exclamations the

31:39

video was lovely one thanks for sending it.

31:41

But I submit

31:43

that maybe homemade,

31:46

homemade, maybe, maybe

31:48

it could still be gross. Yeah, we don't know. Yeah,

31:50

As I've said, I haven't tried any yet. I have high

31:52

hope, so I'm pretty convinced. I don't like it

31:55

to be let down if I don't know. Okay,

31:59

Well, Alanie wrote, When

32:01

I was a little girl, my sister, my cousin, and I were

32:03

taking a bath. My mom was a few rooms

32:06

over, enjoying a cup of coffee and a few minutes

32:08

a piece. As it's always the case when a mom

32:10

sits down for more than two seconds, we immediately

32:12

called out for her. My sister and I kept yelling

32:14

about how my cousin was making bubbles. My

32:17

mom yelled back that it was okay to have bubbles in the bath.

32:20

After a while, as our calls became more intense,

32:22

she put her coffee down and came back to where we were.

32:24

She what she found was that my cousin had

32:27

been chewing at least two pieces of bubblegum

32:29

and dropped it in the bath. The gun had

32:31

melted and spread all over the bath,

32:33

in our hair, all over our bodies,

32:35

and the tub. My poor

32:38

mom got to spend the next couple of hours rebathing

32:40

us and washing her hair with peanut butter gasp,

32:43

sorry Annie, to try to get it out.

32:46

To this day, the bubble gum story is

32:48

a favorite passed around at family

32:50

events. So anyway, I just wanted

32:52

to pass along my gum experience

32:56

that sounds horrible. Two

32:59

things about this is the subject

33:01

line of the email was bubbles

33:04

not the monkey, which caused

33:06

very fun conversation around the

33:09

office kitchen table because

33:11

I didn't get it, but apparently it's the name of Michael

33:14

Jackson's monkey. Oh.

33:16

I didn't get it either, but okay,

33:19

that's what I've been assured by other co

33:21

workers. That's the reference. And

33:23

too, this reminds me of that Christmas that me

33:26

and my cousin we uh

33:28

we snuck in and opened some presents

33:31

Christmas Eve and it

33:33

was gack, do you remember gas? Yeah, it's

33:36

this green slime. Yeah, yeah, like a

33:38

like a like a slimy

33:41

or petty yes. And

33:43

also as it turns out, very sticky

33:45

because we made hats out of it, and

33:48

I came out of Christmas with a

33:51

very different haircut. And

33:54

I learned my lesson. I never tried

33:56

to sneak open a present again. Anytime

34:00

I bring it up, my mom gives the

34:02

greatest groan, and it's like,

34:05

why did they ever think that was a good idea

34:07

to give that? To tell you, yeah,

34:11

I've got nothing there. It

34:13

was pretty funny. I mean, my both my aunt

34:15

and my mom were just complaining for like hours

34:17

as they're trying to get it out of our hair, like

34:20

what moron kids say? But

34:25

Mom, we wanted to make hats. We wanted to pay hats.

34:27

We had this stuff, it's malleable.

34:31

That was the only logical thing to do, obviously,

34:37

obviously, so thanks to both

34:40

of them for writing to us. You

34:42

two can write to us. Our email is hello

34:44

at savor pod dot com. We're also

34:46

on social media. You can find us on Twitter,

34:49

Facebook, and Instagram at savor

34:51

pod. Thank you so much to our superproducer

34:54

Andrew Howard. Thank you to you for listening,

34:56

and we hope that lots more good things are coming your

34:58

way.