gauger One who gauges, specifically an ⇒exciseman. The Old French word gauge (Central Old French and Modern French jauge) is of unknown origin, and is not found in the other Romance languages. It occurs along with the related verb gauger in the 13th century, the earliest sense appearing to be 'action or result of measuring'.
The first recorded use of gauger in English occurs in 1483: 'All the Vessels of Wine ... shall ... be well and truly gauged by the King's Gauger', though it had been recorded in French 130 years previously. 'Gauge' as a verb with the sense of measuring capacity or contents of casks or other containers also has its first English usage in the above quotation.
Marshall Robb records that 'Legislation ... passed in 1657 was the foundation of the excise control of manufacture, various powers were given to officers, including the power to gauge vessels'. (SW3)
In relation to whisky, the term 'gauger' was regularly employed in a colloquial and not always respectful sense in both Scotland and Ireland from the early 18th century. Though now largely confined to historical usage, it is still sometimes heard in conversations between older distillery workers. 'Culloden was to bring in its train an invasion of excisemen, known locally as gaugers, because their main task is to gauge the amount of spirits produced, and a mass of crippling legislation including a rise in the duty'. (Sc)
gauging-rod An ⇒exciseman's instrument on the principle of the slide-rule for measuring capacity or contents of a cask. First attested in 1656, though gaging rod occurs in 1570. Gauging-rule/ruler/stick are also recorded.
gill A liquid measure of one quarter of a standard pint. The word is an adaptation of the Old French gille, gelle in Medieval Latin, gillo, gellus, the name of a vessel or measure used for wine. The first recorded use of gill occurs in 1275: 'Mensuræ quæ; vocantur schopinas et gilles', meaning measures which are called schopinas and gills'.
The variant spelling of gyll also occurs in the late 16th century, whilst the current 'gill' is first recorded in the early 1700s. The first specific reference to whisky and the gill occurs in Burns's 'Holy Fair'. (1785), 'Be it whisky gill, or penny wheep, Or any stronger potion'.
Historically a gill could also be a vessel holding a gill of liquid, usually alcoholic, first attested in c.1440, 'Gylle, lyttle pot, gilla, vel Gillus', and attributively compounds such as -glass (1673), -house (1728) and -stoup (1820) also occur. According to Partridge (DoHS) the term 'gill-ale' had a colloquial currency c.1670-1750. 'Since a gill is only one-quarter of a pint, (it) would seem to mean medicinal ale (? stout).'
The DoD gives the modern northern English colloquial use of gill as referring to a half-pint of beer, and to further confuse matters it is often taken in Yorkshire to mean one-third of a pint. The gill is currently the standard bar measure for spirits in Britain and Ireland, with three fractional measures having been laid down in the Weights and Measures Act of 1963, their 'generosity' frequently depending on geographical location. The standard English measure is usually one-sixth of a gill (5/6 fl.oz. or 20ml), while in Scotland it is one-fifth (1 fl.oz. or 25ml) The Irish measure is the most bountiful of all, usually being 1... fl.oz. or 35 ml, i.e. one-quarter of a gill.
'In Scotland in former times the "glass" and "nip" of whisky were respectively one-half and one-quarter of a gill. In England the corresponding measures were, as far as I am aware, fractions of the Quartern, which is one-quarter of a pint, i.e. a gill of five fluid ounces'. (SW3) The terms 'glass' and 'nip' to signify double and single measures of whisky respectively are still current in most areas of Britain, though in Ireland 'small' usually connotes a single measure.
Robb recalls that by 1920 a 'small' whisky or nip had been reduced in volume to one-fifth of a gill, and that it generally remained that size in Scotland until 1948, when some publicans reduced it to one-sixth of a gill. At the time when Robb wrote Scotch Whisky in 1950 some London publicans were serving measures of whisky as small as one-seventh of a gill. Ivor Brown asserts that, 'The true Scottish measure is a half-gill or a quarter-gill and such should be demanded. A good innkeeper will serve them. The half-gill is almost double one of the debased English "doubles".' (Summer in Scotland, 1952)
In January 1995 the gill became a redundant term for practical purposes as metric legislation decreed that by then all British bar measures must be either 25ml (between one-fifth and one-sixth of a gill) or 35ml (just less than one-quarter of a gill).
glass From Old English glæs. Made by fusing sand (silica) with soda or potash (or both), usually with the addition of one or more other ingredients, especially lime, alumina, or lead oxide. Glass as a substance is first recorded in c.888, and in the sense of a drinking vessel made of glass in 1392-3, 'Pro glases et verres'.
The first figurative use of glass to imply the liquor contained rather than the vessel itself seems to occur in 1757, 'It is common for a number of them, that have got a glass in their heads, to ...'.
In relation to whisky, glass has both the sense of a drinking vessel and a specific quantity of spirit. In bars an order of a 'glass of whisky' will often produce a double measure, twice the size of a nip. (See also ⇒gill.)
The Scotch Whisky Association states that 'whisky does not require any specific shape [of glass] to enhance its delights and no rigid convention has grown up in this connection'. (SWQ&A) For purposes of analytical nosing and tasting, however, a tall-stemmed, tulip-shaped glass is usually used, as the narrow neck helps to contain the vapours which give the whisky its nose. Fleming considers that such a glass could also be used to serve 'a good after dinner malt'. (LWB)
Phillip Hills regards a copita as best for analytical purposes, though he maintains that a small brandy glass is an acceptable substitute. The Austrian designer George Riedel recently produced a revolutionary malt whisky glass with a flared lip, which appeared to contradict all accepted wisdom in terms of nosing and tasting. In a 'test drive' for Wine magazine (January 1993), however, a panel of experts unanimously voted it better than the copita, snifter or tumbler. As Gordon Brown explains, 'The design includes a small lip to direct the spirit on to the tip of the tongue, to bring out the latent creaminess of top quality malt'.
The traditional whisky glass, the cut-crystal tumbler with a wide neck and tapering sides, is quite useless', says Hills. 'It was devised in the nineteenth century and was for drinking blended whisky out of. Since the whisky was being mixed with ice and soda it had no nose to speak of. The tumbler is, nonetheless, the standard whisky glass, particularly where water or mixers are to be added, and if the drink is to be served ⇒on the rocks. Fleming says that 'Bourbon ought to be drunk from a large tumbler, Irish from a small tumbler ... '. (LWB) In Scotland the quarter-pint straight or thistle-shaped tumbler is popular, whilst American drinkers tend to prefer the seven-ounce tumbler for whisky on the rocks and the ten-ounce ⇒Old-fashioned glass. ⇒Dram, ⇒shot or ⇒tot glasses which contain a single measure of whisky are also used, usually only if the spirit is to be drunk neat.
When serving whisky ⇒cocktails a variety of glasses are used as appropriate for the style of drink in question. The six-ounce Old-fashioned glass is used for cocktails such as the formidable ⇒blue blazer and for any cocktail served on the rocks, like the ⇒rusty nail. Jackson says that it 'also doubles for whisky, though the typically chunky old-fashioned glass is less attractive for that purpose than the cut-crystal and faintly tapered tumbler traditionally used for Scotch'. (PBB).
The eight-ounce ⇒highball glass is used for the cocktail of that name and also serves as a general purpose cocktail glass, while a ⇒whisky sour is served in a five or six-ounce stemmed sour glass. The ⇒mint julep comes in a long glass, probably a ten-ounce Collins, and ⇒whisky toddy in what Jackson describes as 'fireproof glasses with handles'. (ibid.)
The art of glass-making was known to the Egyptians and Syrians before 1500BC, and glass had been used for practical and decorative purposes in Britain by the Romans, though it was imported from the continent. The domestic glass industry only dates from the early 16th century, when Venetian glass-makers who had fled to Antwerp in Holland arrived in Britain as refugees. If drinking glasses were in use by the 14th century, the art of making satisfactory glass bottles and their widespread use really only dates from the early 17th century.
Dunford says that, 'The earliest recorded instance of a Scots glassworks was in 1610, when one was established at Wemyss. This does not mean that no Scotsman used a glass for his whisky before then. No doubt some would have been imported over the Border ... But it was not until well into the eighteenth century that glasses were in common use'. (n.d.)
Gunn observes that Adamnan, ruler of lona, refers to the Picts as using drinking glasses some 1300 years ago (W&S), though wood and subsequently pewter were usually the staple materials for drinking vessels, with ram's horn and scallop shells also sometimes being used to dispense whisky. Boswell describes an occasion on the island of Coll when he and Dr Johnson were served whisky in a shell, 'according to the ancient Highland custom'. (Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson)
Probably the most interesting historical examples of glasses which would be used for whisky drinking are those of the 18th century with obvious Jacobite provenance. Some displayed exquisite craftsmanship, being engraved with roses and verses dedicated to James II or his son Charles Edward Stuart, occasionally with a teardrop set in their stems. (See also ⇒quaich.)
Stemmed glasses or goblets were regularly used for whisky drinking during the 18th and 19th centuries, and Skipworth advocates their use even now, on the grounds that the goblet is 'bowl-shaped to concentrate the smell and it has a foot and a stem which make it easier to pick up and swirl around, thus bringing out the aroma'. (SWB) The tumbler, he thinks, 'is altogether too crude for a drink that is often very delicate'.
The adjective glassy occurs as a synonym for ⇒drunk, perhaps deriving from the sense of having consumed too many glasses, but also from glassy- eyed, an all too obvious sign of advanced inebriation. 'Scandinavian deckhands glassy with Younger's Ales', (David Craig, 'Looking After Herself in Craig, ed., Fresh Starts, 1992, p.90) 'Glass' can also take on a slang verb sense, with to glass, the action of glassing, meaning attacking an opponent in a pub fight using a glass as a weapon, with the usual intention of inflicting facial injuries.
Glenlivet Set in the heart of the Banffshire Highlands if north-east Scotland, Glenlivet is 14 miles long and some six miles broad. With regard to whisky, in the words of Neil Gunn, 'Historically speaking, Glenlivet is a synonym for "the real stuff".' (W&S) In 1951 Lockart wrote, 'in many countries [Glenlivet] is even today regarded as a synonym for Highland whisky'. (Sc)
The first recorded use of Glenlivet in the sense given by Gunn occurs in 1822, in Noctes Ambrosianae, a series of articles published in Blackwood's Magazine between 1822 and 1835, many of which were the work of John Wilson, writing under the pseudonym of Christopher North: 'I never drank better Glenlivit'. Five years later the geographically correct spelling was employed by North in the same publication, when he attributed to James Hogg one of the most famous references to Glenlivet, 'If a body could find oot the exac' proportion and quantity that ought to be drunk every day and keep to that, I verily trow that he might leeve for ever, without dying at a', and that doctors and kirkyards would go oot o' fashion.' The 'correct' spelling eluded Sir Walter Scott, too, as he uses the variant 'Glenlivat' in St Ronan's Well (1824), where the character Dr Quackleben declares the liquor to be 'Worth all the wines of France for flavour and more cordial to the system besides'.
If Scott was partial to a ⇒dram of (illegal) Glenlivet - calling the glen's distillers 'cunning chemists' - then so was his monarch, King George IV, whose visit to Scotland in 1822 was stagemanaged by the writer. Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus recalled in Memoirs of a Highland Lady (1898) that 'Lord Conyngham, the Chamberlain, was looking everywhere for pure Glenlivet whisky; the King drank nothing else.'
During the 19th century Glenlivet was one of the five officially recognised classes of malt whisky, along with ⇒Campbeltown, ⇒Islay, ⇒Lowland, and ⇒North Country. When Alfred Barnard made his epic exploration of all the distilleries in Scotland and Ireland during the 1880s, he wrote of Glenlivet in his subsequent book, The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom (1887), 'This neighbourhood has always been famous for its Whisky. Formerly smuggling houses were scattered on every rill, all over the mountain glens, and at that time the smugglers used to lash the kegs of spirit on their backs, and take them all the way to Aberdeen and Perth for disposal'.
It was estimated that some 200 illegal stills were operating in and around Glenlivet at the end of the 18th century, which begs the question as to why this was such an optimum area for the production of whisky. One obvious answer in respect of illicit distillation was its geographical remoteness and inaccessibility, which provided an element of security from the unwelcome attentions of the ⇒excisemen, but the glen also enjoyed ready supplies of the other ingredients essential to successful distilling, such as an abundance of clear spring water, locally available ⇒peat and high quality ⇒barley. Its mountainous location - the current Glenlivet Distillery is one of the highest in Scotland - also contributed to successful ⇒distillation, as cold water made for more efficient condensing of spirit, an activity also best undertaken in a cold climate. 'It might almost be thought that Nature had conspired to provide the perfect conditions for distilling whisky', as the anonymous author of Glenlivet Distillery's official history (1982) puts it.
In his Malt Whisky Companion, Jackson writes that 'What Grand Champagne is to Cognac, the glen of the river Livet is to Speyside. The only whisky allowed to call itself "The Glenlivet" is historically the most famous Speyside malt'.
The history of The Glenlivet is a fascinating one. The farmer and illicit distiller George Smith of Upper Drumin, a tenant of the Duke of Gordon, decided to legitimise his operation in the wake of the 1823 ⇒Excise Act which made legal distilling a more attractive proposition in the Highlands. The Smith family had been 'out' with Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1745, prior to which its surname had been Gow, and the subsequent anglicisation was doubtless a prudent precaution against reprisals. George Smith himself was not an average Banffshire farmer, having been trained as an architect.
The Glenlivet was the first distillery to be granted a licence under the new Act in 1824, and not surprisingly the far-sighted and courageous Smith, who realised the advantages of conducting his business in an open and lawful way, became extremely unpopular with his old smuggling colleagues, who saw him as the worst kind of traitor. As Smith himself put it, 'I was warned by my civil neighbours that they meant to burn the new distillery to the ground and me in the heart of it. The laird of Aberlour had presented me with a pair of hair trigger pistols worth ten guineas, and they were never out of my belt for years'.
Three other distilleries were started up in Glenlivet, but they were forced out of business by the smugglers, though George Smith's son-in-law, Captain William Grant, built a distillery in the 1840s at Auchorachan in the glen which survived. It is interesting to note that in 1849 Grant was advertising in the national press that only his and his father-in-law's distilleries were in the glen and were therefore entitled to use the name Glenlivet. Clearly nobody took much notice of such oft-repeated declarations, and as the reputation of The Glenlivet whisky grew so the temptation also grew for other distillers to 'arrogate to themselves some of The Glenlivet's stature', as John McPhee puts it (H&I) by using the Glenlivet name. It was not only a question of gaining some reflected glory from The Glenlivet, it was also a matter of selling whisky to city spirit merchants for whom Glenlivet was the first specific producing district they knew by name.
Such was demand for The Glenlivet whisky that in 1850 the Smiths built a new plant called the Cairngorm Distillery at Delnabo, near Tomintoul, but demand so outstripped production that in 1858 another new and much larger plant was constructed at Minmore in Glenlivet, capable of producing 600 gallons of whisky per week. Both the old Upper Drumin and Cairngorm distilleries were subsequently scrapped. Andrew Usher of Edinburgh was The Glenlivet's energetic agent, largely responsible for the dramatic growth in sales during the next few decades. Usher is credited with a founding role in the ⇒blending industry as a result of his launching of one of the first branded blends, Usher's Old Vatted Glenlivet.
By 1880 so many whisky-makers throughout Strathspey were using the name Glenlivet alongside their own names on the pretext of vague stylistic or geographical similarities that it was jokingly referred to as 'the longest glen in Scotland'. George Smith's son, John, had taken over control of Glenlivet Distillery from his father and in 1870 he registered the name Glenlivet at Stationer's Hall in an attempt to protect its exclusivity. Ten years later he felt the need to take a test case to establish whether, in the words of Lockhart, 'Glenlivet whisky [had] to be made in the glen in order to justify the title of Glenlivet or could any distillery in the neighbourhood usurp the name? (Sc) The result was only a partial victory for Smith, as Lockhart recounted. 'The court decided that only The Glenlivet Distillery was entitled to label its whisky "Glenlivet" without qualification. The other distillers, however, were not restrained from hyphenating Glenlivet with their own name'.
At one time no fewer than 28 distilleries used the Glenlivet suffix, though many no longer feel the necessity to do so, The Macallan being a notable example of a whisky which is now thought to have enough cachet of its own without any hyphenated embellishments on its label. Aberlour, Glenburgie, Linkwood, Longmorn, Milton Duff, Tamdhu and Tormore are some of the whiskies which latterly employed the Glenlivet suffix, and as Cooper pointed out in 1982, regarding the Perthshire malt whisky Edradour, 'they also bottle it, vatted with one other Highland malt, under the name of Glenforres- Glenlivet, despite the fact that there is no such place as Glenforres and Edradour itself is nearly fifty miles away from Glenlivet'. (WRoS)
Memories of the 1880 Glenlivet court case were rekindled in 1991, when the Scotch Whisky Association successfully objected to the use of the name Glen Gold by John Teeling of Cooley Distillery in Ireland, on the grounds that 80% of purchasers of the cut-price product thought they were buying Scotch whisky. Not only was Glen Gold not Scotch, but it was not whisky as defined by EC regulations, as it contained only 10-15% whisky mixed with ⇒alcohol distilled from molasses. It is difficult to understand how the association could logically object to the use of the word 'glen', however, as Scotland does not have a monopoly of geographical features with that appellation, as residents of Glencolumbcille in Donegal or the Glens of Antrim would testify. During the past decade the Scottish Whisky Association has fought a protracted, and so far unsuccessful, campaign to prevent the Canadian Glenora Distillers from using the name Glen Breton Rare for its signature single malt whisky. As a prefix for brands of Scotch whisky, both blended and malt, 'glen' enjoys great popularity, with more than 120 different permutations currently in use.
For many years The Glenlivet was the only operational distillery situated in the glen, but in 1966 Tamnavulin Distillery was built at the hamlet of Tomnavoulin, and in 1973 Seagram, subsequently owners of The Glenlivet, constructed a new plant called Braes of Glenlivet, subsequently re-christened Braeval. Also in the parish of Glenlivet, though actually situated on the river Avon, into which the Livet flows en route to the Spey, is Tomintoul Distillery, which dates from 1964. The Glenlivets are sometimes known generically as 'The Glen Whiskies', though this is usually taken to mean not just those produced in the glen itself but any whiskies of similar style eligible to carry the Glenlivet suffix.
In 1977 Glenlivet Distillery was acquired by Seagram, and is now owned by Pernod Ricard through its Chivas Brothers subsidiary. The whisky is generally considered to be as good as its history and the use of the definite article would suggest, with tasters unanimous in praise of its quality, using such terms as 'delicacy', 'deep mellowness' and 'honeyed sweetness'. The Glenlivet is currently the best selling single malt whisky in the United States.
golden square/golden triangle On almost every 'whisky map' of Scotland there is a small area in the North-East which boasts such a concentration of distilleries that it is marked with an inset square and treated in detail away from the main map. This is the golden square of Scotch whisky-making, and the term - which implies something of a centre of excellence - has given its name to a brand of blended whisky bottled in Berwick upon Tweed.
Some writers, such as Derek Cooper (WRoS), refer to the area in the counties of Banffshire and Morayshire as a 'golden triangle in the north-east corner of Scotland centred on Elgin, Rothes, Keith and Dufftown', and it also includes the historically famous distilling centre of ⇒Glenlivet. Writing in the Scots Magazine in November 1986, Tom Weir refers to entering 'the golden triangle where whisky-making was a cottage industry when there was enough corn to produce it, and before restrictions on folk's freedom to do so.'
In essence the golden square or triangle is the area which is home to the classification of malt whiskies known as ⇒Speysides, all of which may be said to share certain stylistic similarities and are produced in some proximity to the River Spey. The Spey is Scotland's fastest flowing and second-longest river, rising in the high country of Badenoch, south-west of Cairngorm, flowing by Aviemore, Grantown and Rothes to the sea between Elgin and Buckie.
The ⇒water of Speyside 'is the parent of the region's thoroughbred whiskies', according to Jackson (WGtW); 'the clean, mountain water picks up enough of the region's peat to impart the smokiness that is their particular characteristic'. He describes the Spey valley as 'the backbone of the region'. (ibid.), which can be defined as extending from the River Findhorn in the west to the River Deveron in the east, and as far south as the latitude of Aberdeen. It is 'the great heartland of Highland Malt whisky', according to David Daiches.
The golden square or triangle of Speyside production is home to around 50% of all malt whisky distilleries in Scotland, and Jackson considers that more than 50 of the 60 distilleries in what is basically the Grampian administrative region - 'the world's greatest whisky-making region' according to Jackson (WGtW) - can be categorised as 'Speysides'. Stylistically the Speysides are characterised by their 'smoky and firm' character and 'with more than a hint of sherryish sweetness, they are the most complex of whiskies, and the most elegant'. (ibid.) The same writer claims that the valleys' mild climate helps to create a Speyside character.
Some of the best known malt whiskies produced in the golden square or triangle include Glenfarclas, Glenfiddich, Glen Grant, The Glenlivet, and The Macallan.
goldie Affectionate Scots term for a glass of whisky, obviously with reference to the drink's colour, and often prefixed with the diminutive 'wee'. Morton notes that at Edradour distillery in Perthshire, when ⇒dramming was still practised, each worker received 'a daily ration of three drams, all raw, white spirit straight from the still, and a final, going-home dose of matured, golden whisky. This was known as "three whites and a goldie".' (SoA)
grain Seed, seed of cereal plants, corn, Old French grain, grein (Modern French grain) Latin grãnum, a grain, seed.
The first written record dates from some time in the 14th century, 'Vch gresse mot grow of graynez dede', and the earliest attestation of grain whisky occurs at the surprisingly late date of 1887, 'Grain whisky, i.e. made of barley in the grain stage, and not of malt'. Grindal declares that, 'The name grain whisky is in any case a misnomer. All whisky is made from cereals, in other words grain'. (SoW)
The fact that whisky is distilled in Scotland from grain owes much to climatic factors. As Jackson explains, 'Warm countries like France grow grapes to produce a fermented drink, wine, and a distilled one, brandy. Colder climes grow grain; their fermented and distilled drinks are beer and whisky respectively'. (WGtW)
The 1887 definition is not quite accurate in respect of what is considered to be grain whisky today, as unmalted barley is only one type of grain which can be used, with corn (or maize as it is usually known in Europe), rye and wheat all being permissible within the accepted modern definition. Jackson says 'Though most American whiskey is produced from maize (corn), the distillers also use this grain to produce neutral spirit for the purpose of blending. Some of this is aged and bottled as grain whiskey'. (PBB) Grindal notes that in the United States 'blended whisky may contain up to 80% of neutral spirit'. (SoW)
It is important to note that the production of grain whisky does require a malt input; McDowall states that around 15% of malted barley is usually added to the mash in order to provide the diastase necessary to convert the starch of the maize or other grain to maltose. Maize was first used to make grain whisky in Scotland in 1865, and there and in Ireland it is now the principal grain employed.
Most Irish whiskey was made only from malted and unmalted barley until well after World War II, when the fullness of its flavour was perceived to be a negative factor with regard to export sales, and an element of grain whiskey was therefore introduced to lighten the spirit. Whiskey for both the export and domestic markets now contains grain spirit, and because the Irish prize their pot-still whiskey made from malted and unmalted barley so highly they distil their grain spirit almost to neutrality. As Jackson writes, 'its job is merely to lighten the body of the whiskey. The Scots distil their grain slightly less thoroughly, with a view to their making a definite, if small, flavour contribution'. (WGtW)
Dr Philip Schidrowitz concurred with this view of Scottish grain whisky in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911), stating that the products of the ⇒patent still 'possess a distinct flavour which varies at different distilleries, and analysis discloses the fact that they contain very appreciable quantities of the "secondary" products which distinguish potable spirits from plain alcohol'. Lockhart also considers grain whisky to be more characterful than neutral spirit, describing it as 'lighter in weight and less distinctive in taste than malt whisky'. He makes the point that 'it does not improve in cask in the same manner or to anything like the same extent as malt whisky'. (Sc) The Scotch Whisky Association says of grain whisky that 'Because of the rectifying element present in this process [patent-still distillation] the distillate is generally lighter in aroma than most malt whiskies. It consequently has a milder character and requires less time to mature'. (SWQ&A) Nonetheless, like malt whisky it must by law be matured for a minimum of three years.
Maurice Walsh, writing in his foreword to Marshall Robb's Scotch Whisky, recalls his early days in the ⇒excise service before the First World War and time spent 'down amongst the raw grain distilleries about Alloa'. 'Cambus on the Forth', he writes, 'was held to be the best of the Patent distilleries, its only rival being Chapelizod on the Liffey. In those days patent spirit was no more than a by-product of yeast making; but Cambus, skimming no yeast, used malt and barley in the mash tun, and turned out a palatable drink, maturing in three to five years, and was as near a silent malt whisky as I have ever sampled in a strictly official way'.
Whatever the merits or otherwise of ⇒straight grain whisky, its principal value has always been as a blending agent, and the development of grain spirit and of blending grain with malt was responsible for transforming distilling in Scotland from a cottage industry into the multi-million pound business it is today.
Nowadays, grain whisky production takes place in ⇒Coffey, ⇒continuous or patent stills rather than pot stills, though Moss points out that,
Before the First World War, pot-still grain whisky was produced in large quantities in Scotland. This was made from a mash consisting of unmalted barley and other grams and about five percent malt - necessary to produce the diastase that converts the starches in the other grain into sugars. This pot-still grain whisky was mostly sold straight from the still under the generic name Irish Whiskey, as it was and is the process most commonly used by pot distillers in Ireland. (CSDB)
The patent-still production process is continuous as opposed to the 'batch' system necessitated by the pot still, which means that the amount of spirit produced over a given time is significantly greater. Grain whisky is much cheaper to produce than malt whisky, and the whole scale of grain whisky distilling is appreciably larger than malt whisky distilling. To take one example of scale, Beam Global's Laphroaig malt whisky distillery on Islay has a maximum capacity of 2.7 million litres per year, while Chivas Brothers' Strathclyde grain plant has an annual capacity of 39 million litres. Morrice makes the point that due to the continuous process, less skill is needed by the grain whisky distiller than his malt whisky-making counterpart, who is required to maintain 'the established standards and patterns peculiar to his distillery'. (SGtS)
The grain whisky distillery tends to be functional rather than aesthetically pleasing, both inside and out, and grain whisky production is, as Cooper puts it, 'just a highly efficient industrial process which can, as occasion demands, produce gin and vodka and all manner of industrial spirits'. (CCtW)
The fact that grain whisky can be produced almost anywhere meant that when Barnard made his tour of the distilleries of the United Kingdom in the 1880s, he was able to visit four distilleries in England which were producing whisky, and he notes the existence of a further six making 'plain spirit' for rectifying and manufacturing purposes. In Bristol he toured the oldest distillery in England, built in the 17th century, and he records that it was certainly producing malt spirit in 1761. At the time of his visit the Bristol Distillery was producing almost 640,000 gallons of both 'plain' spirit and grain whisky per annum, the latter being sent to Scotland and Ireland 'to make a blended Scotch and Irish whisky, for which purpose it is specially adapted and stands in high favour'. The Lea Valley Distillery in Stratford,
London was producing some 155,000 gallons of 'malt spirit' and 305,000 gallons of grain spirit per year, though Liverpool was clearly the leading centre for English whisky production, with the modern Bankhall Distillery in Sandhills making one-and-a-half million gallons of plain spirit, malt and grain whisky per year, though the output was predominantly of plain spirit. Liverpool's Vauxhall Distillery had been founded in 1781 and in Barnard's time made an annual two million gallons of grain whisky which was sent to Scotland for blending purposes.
All but one of the grain distilleries currently operating in Scotland are situated in the urban Lowlands, and Irish grain whiskey production takes place at the large, modern Midleton plant in County Cork. As Irish Distillers put it in their promotional literature, 'In Midleton maize can be used as a raw material for the mash and a separate mashing system exists for this purpose. Spirit from maize is used primarily for Gin and Vodka production in Ireland, and maize is also used in a mash with malted barley to make lighter whiskey types'. Neutral grain spirit is also distilled at Invergordon, a large distilling complex constructed in 1961 by the Cromarty Firth in the Scottish Highlands, where it is made as 'a high strength pure spirit, without odour, or colour, but with the cereal character so prized by makers of gin and vodka'.
The first Scottish grain whisky was probably produced in 1828 at Cameronbridge in Fife by John Haig, and 'Choice Old Cameron Brig' endured as the only bottled single grain whisky on the market for many years until it was joined by The Invergordon in 1990, though the latter whisky has now been withdrawn from the market. Another early grain plant was Cambus near Alloa, the produce of which won a kind of praise from Maurice Walsh. While the Royal Commission of 1908/9 was debating whether grain whisky could properly be called whisky at all - with all the implications that held for the burgeoning blending industry - the owners of Cambus, the Distillers Company Limited, produced a seven-year-old patent-still grain whisky which they described as 'light, delicate, exquisite'. Press advertise- ments proudly proclaimed that 'Cambus is not a pot still whisky', and made the claim - hardly tenable in these days of an Advertising Standards Authority - that their whisky produced 'not a headache in a gallon'. It was, they stated, 'a soft, round, natural wholesome stimulant, that ministers to good health and neither affects the head nor the liver'.
DCL funded the 'What is Whisky?' case, and its advertising campaign for Cambus anticipated the Royal Commission's findings that 'whiskey' was nothing more specific than a spirit obtained by distillation from a mash of cereal grain saccharified by the diastase of malt. Gunn writes of molasses being used in patent still distillation in Scotland in the 1930s, though the term 'whisky' could not legally be applied to the product, and more recently John Teeling of Cooley Distillery in Ireland ran into problems with his Glen Gold whiskey which also features molasses among its ingredients. (See ⇒Glenlivet) McDowall writes that 'The result of the "What is Whisky?" Case by which grain whisky could be called Scotch Whisky really set the company on the way to fortune'. (WoS) Once the battle had been won Cambus reverted to its previous role as nothing more than a blending agent, despite the extravagant claims that had been made for it by its distillers.
The origins of the Distillers Company lie in the fact that much of the grain spirit produced in Lowland Scottish patent stills was sent to England where it was re-distilled and flavoured for gin. The leading Scottish grain distillers combined to protect their market share in the face of what could be seen as unfair competition from English distilling concerns, as an Act of 1848 allowed the English to use a wide range of raw materials - including molasses - in distilling, while the Scots were forced to use only grain.
Various groupings and trade agreements within the grain whisky industry took place from the 1850s onwards, with six of the leading Lowland grain producers finally forming The Distillers Company Ltd in 1877. By the time the company was acquired by Guinness in 1986 it owned almost half the malt whisky distilleries in Scotland, along with three operational grain plants which accounted for more than one third of the industry's grain output. It encompassed such household whisky names as Buchanan, Dewar, Haig, Johnnie Walker and White Horse, and boasted more than 100 brands of blended whisky on sale throughout the world.
Regarding the character of grain whisky, it is interesting to note that Edinburgh's North British grain plant allows a higher than normal level of ⇒foreshots and ⇒feints into the finished whisky to enhance its character, and the company insists that its product improves with ⇒ageing for up to at least six years. Daiches remains unpersuaded that it is a product to rival malt whisky, however, and to him North British had 'little or no body, but all surface flavour, and that flavour of a pungent sweet sharpness that makes one think more of a chemistry laboratory than a bar'. (SW1) Choice Old Cameron Brig earned from Daiches the verdict 'Clear and sharp in taste, almost antiseptic indeed, with nothing at all of what I would call whisky character'. McDowall found the same whisky 'surprisingly reasonable to drink, with a slight malt flavour'. (WoS) Prudently he concluded that it is 'certainly better than no whisky, a little reminiscent of D.Y.C., the Spanish whisky.' Daiches sums up grain whisky in general with the nice remark 'not a whisky to drink by itself, nor can it compare as a drink with a pot-still malt whisky. But it is clearly not just "silent spirit"; indeed, it is rather noisy'.
John Glaser of Compass Box Whisky Ltd would doubtless point out that Daiches made that observation without the benefit of sampling Hedonism, Scotland's first blended grain whisky, which comprises a blend of grain of varying ages from the now-closed distilleries of Cambus and Cameronbridge. According to Glaser, grain whiskies are ' ... the elegant, almost feminine alter ego to Scotland's malt whiskies. Most people think of them as the "filler" whiskies in the well-known, commercial blends, but this is far from the whole story. Each grain whisky distillery in Scotland makes a distinctive spirit. And the best grain whiskies - from great casks - are some of the silkiest, sweetest, most mouth-wateringly delicious whiskies in the world. I believe that great grain whiskies from well-chosen casks are the undiscovered treasures of Scotland's whisky kingdom.' 'Blended Grain Whisky' has the legal definition of 'A blend of Single Grain Scotch Whiskies, which have been distilled at more than one distillery. ' (The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009)
Grain or grain can also have the same sense as ⇒draff: the refuse left after ⇒brewing or ⇒distilling. It is first recorded for certain with this sense in 1595, 'No persons ... shall sell any Draffe graynes or branne by any other measure than onlye by the measure that they by ... theire corne bye'. In the early 17th century the practice of using the draff or grain as animal food was already in existence: 'There is also two other Foods ... excellent for Hogges: the first whereof is Ale or Bere Graines' being recorded in 1616.
The first-known reference to distillery grain as opposed to those from beer-making occurs in 1718, 'The feeding Cows with Distillers Grain was a new custom'. In 1751 Dr Johnson writes in The Rambler, 'I met Miss Busy carrying grain to a sick cow'.
From grain comes the modern distilling term dark grains which refers to the cubes or pellets of animal fodder which are made by treating the ⇒burnt or ⇒pot ale with dried draff, also known as light grain. The pot ale evaporates into a dark brown syrup, hence the name, and light grain are then added. Dark grains have a much higher protein content - up to 24% - than light grain. The process was pioneered in America and Canada, and first introduced into Scotland by Hiram Walker, who installed a dark grains plant at Dumbarton in 1964.
green malt See ⇒malt, ⇒green.
grist In general use, grist has the senses both of corn which is to be ground and corn which has been ground, and specifically related to beer and whisky making it is taken to be malt crushed or ground for ⇒brewing.
With this sense it is first attested in 1822, 'The water rises upwards through the malt, or as it is called, the grist', though in its more general sense as outlined above grist is first recorded c.1430 with the spelling variant gryst. Old English grist, gryst, cognate with Old Swedish grist - in gristgrimmo - grinding of teeth. Grist is also employed in common phrases such as, 'It's all grist to the mill', meaning everything can be put to good use, turned to account. It is first recorded in this sense in 1583, 'There is no lykelihoode that those thinges will bring gryst to the mill.'
After malting, the barley - or malt as it is then known - is 'dressed' to remove the rootlets and any other impurities in a dressing machine. Daiches writes that 'the combings (or rootlets) used to be sold as cattle food under the name of "malt culms".' (SW1) 'Once it has been ground into a rough floury meal or grist it is ready for mashing', according to Cooper. (CCtW)