Making Whisky in Scotland at Springbank Distillery

Springbank was established in 1828 on the site of Archibald Mitchell's illicit still. The distillery is now in the hands of Hedley G Wright, Mitchell's great-great-grandson, the fifth generation of the Mitchell family to own and manage Springbank. Being based in Campbelltown, the once-proclaimed whisky capital of the world, it is no surprise that many of the methods established by our forefathers are still applied in the distillery today. We use traditional production methods and are involved in each and meaning our whisky is the most handmade in Scotland. So this is a steep. This is where basically we start step one. We fill this up with our barley which comes from these chutes down here. One, two, three. We specifically, we fill it with different tonnage. We'll steep the nine ton for 12 hours in water and then we'll drain it for 12 hours. Then we steep it again for 14 in water and then we then drain it for four hours. And after that, once it's steeped, we then lay it onto the floor. But this is the upstairs floor, so this is nine ton. Nine ton. Which is usually like, again, 10 tons, but because of the heat and the warmth outside. We then lay it out evenly for an even germination. Depending on season, if it's warm, we like it quite thin, but not too thin. And then again, if it's winter cold, we then lay it out thicker. The winter, we close all windows to keep the heat in. In the summer, we open them all up to air it. And if the temperatures get too hot, we have fans as well, but that's all really work. We work with the natural air. Basically, it's just before six o'clock. We've got the barley here that's been soaking. We're laying this all out so we can eventually trick the barley into what we call germination. So it thinks that it's actually ready to grow. Twenty-five minutes in, man. This pile just doesn't seem to go away. So go away. So after six days, shovel it all in the wheelbarrows or push it down our elevator. That then goes from here to the kiln. Guys, early in the morning, 5.30, and we are starting the mulching process. So as you can see, buddy Daniel over here is already getting to work and scooping all of the barley, malted barley, into here, which is then getting pumped up onto a conveyor and into the kiln. So these guys are getting upset with me. I need to start getting to work. Who needs a gym, man? You guys. This is it. This is the PPSJ. There's two floors, by the way. There's this floor and then there's a floor. I'm actually asking him just to So this is where pretty much the magic happens, correct? So you guys saw the malted barley on the floor, went up through the chute, and this is where it ends up right here in what we call a kiln. We put it on manually, spread it evenly, malting it. It's not going to be dry on one side. It's not going to be wet or dry and damp halfway. And we looked at where you guys are going to It's going in and you can see on this floor here, it's basically a grate. So that smoke will come through and come through all this barley, giving it that smoke. And obviously you guys make different types of whiskey. Well, I'm not going to lie, guys. It's since six o'clock and I don't know. I think it's been a couple hours now and all I've done is basically shoveled. In the day shift, that's your work. It seems to be all you do, right? Start the fire. Yeah. Once it starts going, close the door a little bit. You can see now that he's starting to mix the dry stuff. Obviously, the dry stuff's catching everything on fire and then the moist stuff kind of sits on top, creating that smoky, you know, the more peatier, smokier flavors, especially in whiskey. You could be doing this up to 48 hours, if not longer. Obviously, every distillery has their own process in doing that. But essentially, this is it. The more peat, the more smokier flavors that you want in your barley. You just do this for longer periods of time. We just opened up the kiln and you guys saw we lit it yesterday about 11. It was on for what, six hours? You guys come in in the morning, check in to make sure it's dry. You'll do samples all around the kiln. Yeah. This is the only technology that Springbank uses, so I don't even know if we're allowed to show this. Take another couple of samples just to, so take another one anyway. Barley goes down from this chute here, along this belt, and down what's called the donkey. Along the chute, at the end there, and then into the bin, and that's it. Once it comes from the kiln, it goes into these bins, hold about approximately 20 tons. This is the system we use. Very sophisticated, by the way. Bin, full, empty. We've got to determine how fast we feed the mill. We don't want to feed it too quick, or we'll get a choke. Drop it down to this cross screw, which they will take into the mill room. This is the continuation. The malt travels along here, drops down, and it's pucked up by buckets, and it's transferred right up to the very top, where we're going to go now. Now the malt runs down there. There's small magnets in the bottom, which will catch any metal, and it'll go straight into this thresher, which will turn it, and any loose particles, what we call cummins, will go that way, and any small stones will get caught in that, and they'll come out. It'll drop into here, and when that gets to a certain weight, which we call a coop, it will drop down, and then it'll feed the rollers. And then it'll go through the rollers, down, it'll come along in the grist form, straight back up, along, and into the grist bin. I'm sitting there for half an hour. I'll start bringing it through to the underbar. What comes from there into there is then known as warts, sugary water, very sweet. It's in there. Once I get it to the level, I'll start pumping it from here up through a paraflow. This is how we measure our water. Yeah, talk to me about this. How long has this been in existence for here? Since the place was in it, actually. Really? Yeah. Just the old way they used to do it. Gotcha. Once we regulate the temperature there in the wash bath, we'll then drop in the yeast. Drop in the yeast, yeah. This is the last one to go through. How long has this been sitting here? About four or five hours. Four or five hours. So not really too much going on here in terms of the fermentation process going. Now that is fermentation. Once fermentation is complete, this gets transferred over into this container here. The liquid from the wash backs is passed through Spring Rink's three copper stills, a low wine still, a spirit still, and the wash still, which unlike many distilleries, is fired by a live flame. The spirit produced by this process is then transferred into the spirit safe, where the stillman monitors its progress. The SRWV here at Springbank, the spirit strength is usually between 70-71% alcohol. We'll take, using a Camelton water source from Croisilloch, we'll add the water in and reduce the spirit to 63.5. Filling head here, it's just got a sensor, and when the spirit hits the sensor, it'll cut out and litres are recorded and they meet up here for customs and excise, and then from there it goes to the warehouse for maturation. For the first floor for customs, you wait, you have a tare weight and a gross weight, so the litres will match. The filled casks are then transported to Springbank's dark, moist warehouse and left for a minimum of three years, the age at which a spirit legally becomes whiskey. The whiskey has matured for various time periods under the watchful eye of their distillery manager, and some are bottled especially for limited edition ranges. One in particular was bottled 50 years after it had been filled, giving it a truly unique character. Depends on the size of the cask or the amount we're using, we either fill one of the two parts, and if required, reduce the whiskey down to the required strength. Once it's been reduced, it's through into the filling head for some of the guys to take the measure here and make sure whether it's a 70 cent a layer or 75 cent a layer coarse ground, and from there it goes on to the light to make sure there are no bits of impurities in the whiskey. It goes through the capsule machine, so we hit the labelling machines where the guys put on the front and the back labels on them, so as you can see, very, very much hands-on, very people-orientated. It travels down our line to where the packaging people, all the guys that do the packaging, they check the bottles, make sure the labels are correct, make sure they're on properly, make sure they have the correct packaging, from there it goes into the correct packaging. We're very, very proud we're 100 percent everything on site. I just want to say thank you so much for allowing me to come into Springbank and learn from you guys. I really appreciate that, and I've learned so much about the whiskey making process. Part of my tradition is I bring a bottle from where I came from and learned to the next place that I've learned from, and I learned a whole bunch about the whiskey making process from you guys. So this is from Grote Constantia, it's called Grand Constance, and again it's a token of my appreciation for allowing me to come learn from you guys. That's it. Thank you so much.