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Bottled Glog Made the Hard Way

A bottled glog came out this winter and I wasn't too excited about that until I learned how it was made. 

Many European countries have traditions of hot wine drinks in the winter, often mulled with spices, and sometimes fortified with brandy or other distilled spirits. 

Geijer Glogg, though, is made in California at the St. George Spirits distillery, and it's not just wine + spirits + spices in a bottle. That would be the easy way.

St. George Spirits was founded as a brandy distillery and they apply brandy-making techniques to many products. 

According to Martin Geijer, founder of the brand: 

• The spices and botanicals (cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, Seville Orange peel, almonds and raisins) are infused in very warm water. 
• When the process is done, grain neutral spirits and cane sugar is introduced and allowed to settle for a while. 
• The leftover spices are then distilled in the pot stills at St. George Spirits with a gin basket to extract the alcohol and flavor that was absorbed. 
• The distillate is then blended with the infused product for the final result.

Just thought I'd share that as that extra distillation step is kinda cool. 

Essential Oils and Cointreau's Centrifuge

In 2011 I visited the Cointreau distillery in Angers, France. I wrote about that here. After I returned I realized I had a few more questions.

Luckily, Cointreau's Master Distiller Bernadette Langlais was in San Francisco last night so I had a chance to clarify some questions about the centrifuge part of the process.

To recap, Cointreau is made by steeping orange peels in high-proof neutral beet sugar alcohol and distilling it. This 'raw alcoholate' is reduced with water, centrifuged, then reduced with more water, more neutral alcohol, and sugar before filtration and bottling.

The centrifuge step was curious to me, so I asked Langlais for some clarification. She told me that this step removes some essential oils from the alcoholate. 

But then why not just use less oranges in the first place to have less essential oils?

It turns out that they use the centrifuge (which is a continuous centrifuge, by the way, not a batch process) to remove only certain essential oils. Surprisingly, they are not removing heavy ones that would collect at the outside of the centrifuge (a centrifuge separates by weight), but the lightest, zesty oils. 

Langlais said this was so that there is a proper balance between the 'juicy' flavors and zesty ones in Cointreau. If they left everything in, the liqueur would be overwhelmingly zesty.

Local Sugars 

I also brought up the topic of Cointreau in Brazil and Argentina, where it is made with sugar cane alcohol and cane sugar, instead of beet sugar. This is due to local tax regulations that would make Cointreau prohibitively expensive if they used their regular beet sugar. I learned that they make the same 'raw alcoholate' (high-proof orange-infused alcohol) at the distillery in France and ship that to the local countries. There, they add more (cane) alcohol and (cane) sugar before bottling. 

Langlais said that it tastes the same as regular Cointreau. She also said that the sugar from cane or beets tastes exactly the same, and the more important part of the equation is the alcohol, even though it is 96% alcohol and supposedly neutral in flavor.

Which Distilleries Have Floor Maltings?

As I mentioned in a post about my visit to Laphraoig, only a few scotch whisky distilleries do their own malting. 

Floor malting is the historic technique of preparing barley for fermentation; turning it into malted barley. Most of the 100 distilleries in Scotland purchase malted barley from commercial malting plants, and most (all?) of the distilleries that do floor malting also purchase additional malt from commercial malters.

Read more about floor maltings here.

Today I just read about another scotch whisky distillery re-starting their floor malting, so I thought it would be good to create a list. 

Distilleries that do floor malting are: 

• Laphroaig, Islay
• Bowmore, Islay
• Kilchoman, Islay
• Highland Park, Orkney Islands
• Springbank, Campbelltown
• The Balvenie, Speyside
• Benriach, Elgin, Speyside

As for American and other countries that do floor maltings (for beer or whiskey), that will be a list for another day. 

How Grey Goose is Made

This September I visited Cognac, France to judge a competition for Grey Goose vodka. While there, I learned about the production process. I'm sorry I don't have pictures of all this to share- you like reading, right?

Grey Goose is made in two parts: in Picardy, in the north of France, where the wheat is grown and distilled; and Cognac, France, where the wheat spirit and water are filtered and bottled.

 

Picardy, France. Image from Wikipedia

The Wheat

Grey Goose is made from soft winter wheat grown in Picardy. In that region they grow tons of wheat for France (and you know how the French like baguettes). The temperature never goes below -5 degrees Celsius and in the summer not hotter than 25 or 35 degrees. Winter wheat is sewn in October and harvested in August, giving it 10 months to grow strong, as opposed to summer wheat that grows in 6 months and is more fragile. 

The wheat is grown by many farms, then sold to and classified by a co-op. They use only that classified as "superior bread-making wheat" for Grey Goose.  Soft wheat, as opposed to hard wheat, is better for distilling according to Maitre de Chai Francois Thibault. I takes about 1 kilo of wheat to make 1 bottle of vodka.

Milling and Fermentation 

Interestingly, Grey Goose doesn't own their distillery, yet they have an exclusive contract with the distillery and they produce only Grey Goose there. The distillery is also located in Picardy, and it sounds like quite the huge operation. The entire distilling process is one continuous operation - wheat goes in and spirit comes out with the whole thing in motion. 

The wheat, purchased from three different co-ops, enters the distillery, where it is cleaned and then milled. It is milled four times over the course of 24 hours. The husks, which won't ferment, are sold as cattle field. The flour goes through to fermentation. 

To break the carbohydrates in the flour down into fermentable sugars, enzymes are added. They add one enzyme that cuts the starch into random sized pieces, then cool it, then add another enzyme that cuts those pieces into evenly sized fermentable sugars.

Why use enzymes? I asked Francois Thibault that question. He said that unlike barley, which can be prepared to transform into fermentable sugars by the malting process, wheat doesn't germinate (see geeky explanation by Ben in the comments). However, as with bourbon, malted barley could be added to the corn/wheat to help transform its starches into fermentable sugars. Thibault says though they could use malted barely, using enzymes is more stable, efficient, and cleaner; and no undesired microorganisms will be added during the process.

Now the wheat is ready for fermentation. They use a commercial (non-proprietary) yeast strain that is prepared elsewhere. 

Fermentation takes place in a continuous manner - this is something I've not seen at other distilleries, though I think this technology is used elsewhere. Typically, the wheat/corn/whatever that is being fermented goes into a big vat, ferments completely, then the vat is emptied out. This is a batch process.

For Grey Goose, they use a continuous fermentation process over a series of six cascading tanks. Wheat and yeast goes in the first tank, then pours into each successive tank operating at a different phase in the fermentation process. At the end, the liquid is fully fermented in the form of a beer at 10% alcohol by volume. This takes about 30 hours. New wheat and yeast is constantly added to the first tank and beer is constantly pulled out of the last one. 

Distilling

Then the beer is distilled into spirit. They use a five column distillation process. Despite the names given to each of thecolumn stills, they're more or less the same stills, just fine tuned  with number of plates, pressure and temperature settings, etc., to do a certain job. 

• The first column strips out the water and produces a spirit at 92% alcohol.
• The second column is tuned for "hydro-selection," meaning the spirit is watered back down before entering it, and it is redistilled to remove certain components.
• The third column is "rectification under pressure" and the fourth is "rectification under vacuum." Both of these strip out high and low oils.
• The last column is tuned for "demethanolisation." 

The waste products of distillation are redistilled and sold off as industrial alcohol.

The entire process from when the wheat enters the distillery until it leaves takes four and a half to five days. 

 Filtration, Water, and Bottling

 I didn't have the opportunity to visit the wheat fields and distillery in Picardy, but I did get to visit the bottling facility near Cognac. 

The water used to bottle Grey Goose comes from a well 500 feet deep beneath the bottling plant. As the soil is full of limestone (just like in Kentucky), the resulting water is full of calcium. 

The water is filtered to remove the minerals using double reverse osmosis. Thibault emphasized that the machine can't make great water out of bad water, so they have to start with good stuff like they have. Furthermore Thibault says they don't filter it to 100% pure H20 - they do it to their specifications and leave in the rest for character. 

The water is mixed with vodka to bottling proof and then filtered again, this time through pads of cellulose and carbon. 

I was curious as to why they don't just bottle the vodka up in Picardy. Thibault says they didn't really consider it - he was based in Cognac (he was a cognac and other spirit maker) when Sidney Frank asked him to develop Grey Goose, and he knew the water in the region was good. He says it was a practical decision to grow the wheat and distill in Picardy and transport it Cognac rather than ship the water of Cognac to Picardy or to try to grow wheat in the Cognac region. 

Finally, the bottles are also produced in France. At the bottling facility they only bottle Grey Goose, no other products. 

The Glycerin Question

Grey Goose has long been the victim of rumors that it has something added to it to make it smoother. Darcy O'Neil tested Grey Goose for glycerol and found none. But other additives are allowed by US law (sugar, and I think citric acid, for example). So I asked Thibault directly if anything was added to Grey Goose after distillation besides water. He said "Absolutely nothing," and I believe him. 

Distillery Visit: George Dickel

This spring I visited the George Dickel distillery, located in Cascade Hollow, Tennessee. 

Dickel and Jack Daniel's are the two defining Tennessee whiskies: both employ the "Lincoln County Process" of running the new spirit through 10+ feet of charcoal before it is aged. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a requirement of Tennessee whisky, as Tennessee whisky is not its own category by US law. By putting "Tennessee" on the label it must be made in Tennessee, but beyond that Dickel and Daniel's meet all the requirements for bourbon. 

In 1870, George Dickel founded the distillery, originally called Cascade Whisky, and it was renamed by his wife after Dickel died. Prohibition came early to Tennessee, so in 1911 the distillery moved to Kentucky, then closed during national Prohibition. Twenty years after Prohibition the distillery was rebuilt about half a mile from its original location. 

The mashbill for Dickel bourbon is 84% corn, 8% rye, and 8% malted barley. All bourbon uses a majority of corn, malted barley to aid in fermentation, and a minority of either wheat or rye. At Dickel it is a pretty high percentage of corn for a sweeter tasting whiskey. 

Most of the corn used for George Dickel is local, and the rye and barley comes from North Dakota. They distill here four days each week currently, so they have the capacity to make a lot more bourbon than they currently do.

The grains, which are cooked to make them easier to ferment, ferment with yeast for three or four days before they are distilled. The still is 42 inches in diameter and is three storeys tall. In a column still, the fermented mash (the grain solids and the liquids, unlike in scotch whisky where only the liquids are distilled) goes in near the top of the column. During distillation the alcohol comes out the top of the still and everything else goes out the bottom. 

Most bourbons (but not Jack Daniel's) undergo a second distillation in either a "thumper" or "doubler." This second distillation acts like a pot still, so they say. Doublers are more common, and used here at George Dickel. 

Originally Dickel distilled whiskey in the winter as they said it tasted best then. To mock that, the newly-distilled whisky is chilled to 40 degrees Fahrenheit before it is added to vats of sugar maple charcoal for the Lincoln County Process. 

While at Jack Daniel's the whiskey is continuously dripped through a huge vat of charcoal and collected at the bottom, at Dickel the chilled distillate fills up the tank with the charcoal and sits together for about a week before it is drained. They have to refill the charcoal in each vat every 12-18 months. 

The first distillation reaches 115 proof. The second distillation brings it up to 135 proof (160 is the legal limit). Though they can put whiskey in the barrel at up to 125 proof, at Dickel they store it at 115. The whiskey is aged in new American oak barrels with a char #4 on the staves and char #2 on the barrel heads. 

 As is common in American whiskey, the barrel warehouses (rickhouses) are not located right at the distillery, but are scattered about the hilltops nearby. This way they can take advantage of the cooling winds that blow through. Dickel has about 150,000 barrels of whiskey aging today. 

Dickels rickhouses are all one storey structures. (Four Roses also uses one storey rickhouses but six storeys is the norm.) With one storey warehouses, there is less temperature differential between barrels aging at the top of the warehouse (those will be the hottest and get the most wood influence the fastest) and the bottom of the warehouse (where whiskey ages relatively slowly). 

The angel's share, the amount of alcohol that evaporates from the barrels during storage, is 5 percent the first year and 3 percent each year after. 

After aging, the whiskey is run though a paper filter to remove any charcoal bits before bottling. 

Visiting George Dickel

Last year 17,000 visitors came through the distillery. The tour is free, but unfortunately there is no whiskey tasting as part of it. Visitors can buy bottles but can't drink them on site. For more information, visit Dickel.com.

Making Hendrick's Gin

At Tales of the Cocktail Vancouver, I stopped in to the Hendrick's Gin tasting room. I've been to about 70 million Hendrick's events, but in this one I first learned how the gin is made. 

It turns out that Hendrick's is the product of two different stills. Botanicals are infused into the spirit during distillation in different ways depending on the still.

 

 

The botanicals go into the column in the still on the left, whereas they are infused into the spirit directly in the pot in the still on the right.

The two distillates are mixed and rose and cucumber essences are added. This makes a gin concentrate. Like many other brands of gin, this concentrate is then diluted both with water and neutral spirit to bring it to the proper bottling strength.

We were able to try each of the distillates, smell the essences, and taste the concentrate.

 

 

And then it was time for drinks.   

 

 

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Videos of Recharring Barrels at Hakushu Distillery

On my visit to the Hakushu distillery in Japan we watched a guy recharring ex-bourbon barrels. Recharring is when you refresh a barrel by burning the inside of a previously-used cask to give it additional life for aging spirits. 

In this first video, we watch the recharring process while Mike Miyamoto explains that whisky aged in recharred barrels is more astringent than whisky aged in non-recharred barrels. 

In this second video, we watch the rechar guy put out the flame with one scoop of water. 

 

A Visit to the Yamazaki Distillery in Japan

Yesterday I wrote about visiting the Hakushu distillery in Japan. Today I'll write about Suntory's other single-malt distillery, Yamazaki. It is located between Kyoto and Osaka, at the convergence of several rivers. I believe they said the distillery welcomes 100,000 visitors each year. 

(Mount Fuji as seen from the train to Kyoto.)

The Yamazaki distillery was built in 1923 and launched its first whisky, the White Label, in 1929. That whisky is still made today.

The distillery location was chosen because of its water (as are most distilleries), also sought out by Sen no Rikyo, the inventor of the Japanese tea ceremony. One of his tea houses from the 1500s still stands nearby.

 

Like at Hakushu they import malted barley from Scotland, then grind it, mash it, ferment it, distill it, and age it on site. At Yamazaki they use a combination of wooden and stainless steel washbacks (fermentation vessels). They use the same yeasts as at Hakushu, but sometimes in different proportions. 

They have six differently-shaped pairs of stills to make whiskies with many different flavor characteristics, further enhanced by aging in five different types of barrels. 

Hogsheads (reassembled ex-bourbon barrels at a larger size), puncheons (large barrels made of new American oak), and Mizunara (Japanese oak) barrels are made at the cooperage in Japan at their grain distillery.

Spanish oak sherry butts are made for them in Spain, and ex-bourbon barrels are what they are. 

Mizunara oak grows in the north of Japan, and sometimes in Hokkaido. I used to describe its flavor as similar to sandalwood incense, but on this visit I was tasting it more as a combination of sticky pine tree and cedar. Either way, it's got spice. 

They still have a cask from 1924 in the warehouse (though they've swapped out the whisky) and you can see the Cadiz sherry stamp beneath the Yamazaki one. 

We tasted whiskies aged in three types of oak: Mizunara, Spanish ex-sherry, and new American oak puncheons. 

From the Yamazaki website, "White oak adds vanilla and coconut flavours during the aging process. Tannins and other polyphenols contained in Spanish oak casks leach into the whisky, imbuing it with a deeper reddish hue compared with white oak casks. Whiskies aged in Spanish oak casks typically have fruity, chocolate notes. Over long periods of aging the Japanese oak casks add a distinctively Eastern touch to the whisky, endowing it with sweet fragrances reminiscent of incense with a hint of citrus. This unique flavour has been gaining the Yamazaki brand new adherents around the world." 

At Yamazaki they have six different still shapes, use five types of barrels, and barley at two peating levels. This adds up to 6x5x2 = 60 different whiskies produced at this distillery to be used in single malt and in blends.

Speaking of blends, the Hibiki blend is assembled at this distillery as well. (I think the lower-end blended whiskies that we don't get in the States are put together here too.) The blends have aged grain, column-distilled whiskies along with the single malts from the Hakushu and Yamazaki distilleries. 

At the distillery, there is a tasting room where you can try a variety of distillery-only products like 100% sherry cask Yamazaki the 1980s and white dog.

They also have a library of their whisky experiments.

And an advertising museum. I wish they'd bring back Uncle Torys.

 

Now that we've talking about how they make Hakushu, Yamazaki, and Hibiki, I'll get into where and how to drink them in Japan over the next few posts.