The Trials of a Distillery Tour Guide

Notes from a North Sea Island

"Where am I?"

The rather large American lady bumbles through the door behind her fellow cruise passengers. For a split second concern registers in my brain that she might not fit through. A flash of horror …. what if she got stuck?

It’s eight o’clock in the morning and I’m handing out drams of whisky to our guests with a huge, if slightly cheesy, welcoming grin fixed firmly on my face.

“What’s that” the American lady booms stretching out a podgy hand to meet the tumbler I’m holding out to her.

“It’s Highland Park whisky”.

The nose wrinkles, and with a rather loud sniff the hand drops heavily to her side.

"Is that what you make here?”t certainly is”. I try to keep the despair out of my voice.

“It’s too early in the day for me”, the glass is pushed back at me as she flounces past, her shoulder bag floating out behind her, as though trying to give her wings, and almost knocking the tray out of my hand.

“Oh yeah, I’ll have one of those”, the companion of the American lady reaches out eagerly to receive a glass of the amber nectar. About to follow her friend into the viewing room, where a short introductory film is about to be shown, the second lady suddenly stops dead in her tracks, as though something deeply significant has just occurred to her.

“Where are we?” I’m perhaps not quite able to hide my puzzlement.

“You’re at the Highland Park Whisky Distillery”, I answer as clearly as possible, wondering whether the poor woman’s suffered a sudden ‘bad turn’, causing her to have some kind of bizarre brain storm.
“No, I mean which Port are we in?” the lady persists, sounding a little desperate now.

Ah, the joys of a luxury cruise. See the world in twenty three days, a different city every night, see a million sights and try to remember which monument, museum, structure or statue you saw where. I guess it must be confusing.

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A brief calm as the visitors watch on screen how the ‘water of life’ is made while sipping their drams, before the guides take them out on a tour of the Distillery in groups of fifteen.

So, first off the Barley Loft and Malting Floors. Here the visitors exclaim over the huge steeps, the size of the barley store, capable of holding up to six hundred tonnes of grain, and delight over the two Distillery cats, Malt and Barley, frolicking together on the floor in the group’s midst. Visitors love the idea of being handed a handful of the green malt to examine in minute detail, before allowing it to run through their fingers back onto the floor.

Next stop, the first of Highland Park’s two kilns. I once took on tour a group of annoyingly cocky school children from Amsterdam (I guess I must have drawn the short straw that day). I was patiently explaining to them that we use coke (a type of coal which has had its gases removed) to dry the malt, rather than natural coal which could possibly impart an undesirable flavour to the malt, when a small hand went up. Momentarily I was thrilled to think I had held that young person’s attention for long enough to encourage her to raise a question. My delight, however, quickly turned to horror.

Oh dear, I thought. She hadn’t been listening properly after all, especially as I’d been holding a piece of the grubby black stuff in my hand all the while I was talking. I imagined the girl was now seeing the kiln stuffed full of cans of cola in her mind’s eye and was probably wondering if she could have one.

“Yes, I do”, I affirmed. I was just bending down to pick up the piece of coke again which I had dropped onto the floor, when I was arrested half way by her desire for further clarification of this point.

“Do you mean ‘coke’ as in cocaine?”

I think my jaw must have dropped to my boots. I must admit it took me the best part of the rest of the tour to recover from the shock.

To the Mash House. The anecdote that never fails to raise a few smiles is the one about World War II when the Italian POWs stationed on the Islands allegedly came to the Distillery in the early mornings to take their bath in the huge washbacks used for fermentation. I always took pains to reassure my group that the evidence of this practice has long since disappeared as the washbacks are steam cleaned after each use.

The Still House is, of course, always a ‘wow factor’. Seeing the four great stills at such close quarters cannot fail to impress while one’s nostrils are infused with the intoxicating vapour of raw alcohol, which some days is almost totally overpowering.

Last, but by no means least we come to the bonded warehouse, home of the maturing whisky for the next dozen years or more. While admiring rows upon rows of casks in this dark and almost spooky place visitors learn about Magnus Eunson, the Distillery’s founder going about his clandestine activities of producing illicit whisky when he wasn’t preaching to his devoted parishioners.

On returning to the Visitor Centre there is the chance to sample another dram, if desired, and to purchase a few souvenirs and a bottle (or maybe two) of the fine product produced at this, the most northerly Scottish whisky distillery in the world.

Uisge Beatha … The Water of Life

Notes from a North Sea Island

“To make whisky it takes barley, water and yeast”.

So I began my tours during the six years I worked as a guide at the Highland Park Whisky Distillery. Until I started working for myself as a freelance writer, this was the most fun I had ever had during my entire working life. Every day was different and I was always meeting new people, even if most of them only became acquaintances for between thirty minutes to an hour. It was such a thrill to be able to pass on my enthusiasm for Orkney to the visitors and contribute to the pleasant memories they took away from their visit to these shores.

The Highland Park Distillery, established in 1798, lies on the rise above the town of Kirkwall. The founder was Magnus Eunson, who was a gentleman of some ingenuity. By day he practiced as a clergyman while at night he indulged in making his illicit whisky. Orkney being the small and remote place it is news travelled quickly and he would know in good time when the excise officer set foot on the Islands, enabling him to hide the whisky underneath the pulpit in his kirk.

In fact, whisky continued to be made illegally at Rosebank, the site of the present Distillery for a total of twenty seven years before a change In the law at last made distilling a viable business proposition. Ironically, the original buildings were owned by the very excise officer who had finally arrested Magnus Eunson a decade earlier. The main attraction of the site were the springs of crystal-clear water, about half a mile away at a spot known as Cattie Maggie.

Today Highland Park prides itself as being the northern most Scottish Whisky Distillery in the world. It is one of only five Distilleries left which carries out its own malting. Whisky connoisseurs come here from all over the world to witness this long and labour intensive process. Once the barley has begun to germinate after having been soaked in ‘steeps’ for forty eight hours, it is transferred to the 'Malting Floors'. When the tiny ‘shoots’ appear, it becomes known as ‘green malt’. Depending on the time of year, the green malt will remain spread out on the vast concrete floors for about a week while the germination continues. During this time the malt is turned at least three times a day, using a ‘turner’ which looks like a huge electric lawnmower and weighs over 200kg. Next, the drying process. At Highland Park malt is dried in two separate kilns for a total of fifty hours. First over peat, which infuses the end product with the delicate heathery notes particular to this whisky and then over coke, a type of coal which has had its gases removed. When the malt is ready it is moved to the floor of the kiln, situated about ten metres above the kiln itself, by means of a small elevator. The dried malt is then ground and separated into three components. Grits is the coarsest element, then grist and finally flour. The grist and the flour hold the natural sugars which will eventually turn onto alcohol during the distillation process.

The mashing begins when the product from the mill is filtered into the steel mashtun by means of a huge industrial cone or funnel and is then immersed in water which is exchanged three times at increasing temperatures. Great metal blades mix the mash inside the mashtun, extracting all the natural sugars. The resulting liquid is cooled before being drained into massive 'washbacks' for the fermentation to take place. Fermentation lasts around fifty hours. The ‘wash’, as it is now known contains around 7% alcohol at this stage.

Scottish whisky is distilled twice. The wash is transferred into the so-called ‘wash stills’. The liquid is brought to boiling point by steam coils in the base of the stills. Along with the resulting steam the vapour is driven off and cooled in a condenser before passing into the 'spirit safe' in liquid form. Here it is managed, ie. analysed for purity and strength, without direct contact with the spirit, thereby enabling the distiller to keep to strict laws regulating the whisky industry. From the spirit safe the liquid, known as 'low wines' at this point, are directed into the low wine receiver.

After the first distillation the low wines contain around 27% alcohol. They are now transferred into ‘low wine stills’ and following the second distillation the resulting spirit will hold around 70% volume.

At this point the final and longest step of the whisky making process begins. The raw spirit is filled into sherry and bourbon casks for maturation. Highland Park ages its whisky for 12 18, 21 and 25 years. While being stored in bonded warehouses for these respective periods of time the volume is reduced by about 2% a year through evaporation. Known as the 'angel’s share' this loss eventually dilutes the alcohol volume to between 40 and 53%, depending on the length of time whisky is aged for.