What Goes Behind The Gates Of A Whiskey Distillery

Denver, a city decorated by its many breweries and distilleries, is known for its amazing craft alcohol and brewery tours the world over. A must-do buck-list item for tourists is visiting a whiskey distillery in Denver. The secret behind Denver’s legacy of prestigious breweries is the Colorado River that has gifted Denver an infinite supply of fresh water, which is one of the main ingredients for making whiskey. From Stranahan to Ironton, every distillery in the city has its own secret blend to create a whiskey that they call a masterpiece. However, the basic steps followed by a distillery for making whiskey are the same. Let’s take a look.
The process of distillation of whiskey has seen over 200 years through different manufacturers but the main steps of production remain the same. Just three basic ingredients, water, barley, and yeast, are processed through time-tested five stages of distilling create a whiskey.

1. Malting

The distilling process for whiskey starts with Malting where starch contained in Barley is converted into soluble sugars to make alcohol. This is done by the germination of Barley. Usually, every distiller chooses its own selection of barley, but the aim is to get high yields of soluble sugar from the chosen selection. To start the germination process, Barley is soaked in warm water for 2-3 days and turned regularly to maintain a constant temperature. When the barley starting shooting, the barley solution is passed to a kiln for drying to stop the germination process and the length of time spent drying the barley changes the flavor accordingly. This barley obtained from Malting, called 'Malt', is ground in a mill, to remove any husks and other debris.

2. Mashing

This ground down malt, called 'grist', is now mixed with warm water to extract soluble sugars. Remember the Colorado river! Well, the quality of water also impacts the taste due to the minerals and salts contained in it. This combination of malt and water is called the 'Mash'. It is put into a large vessel called a ‘mash tun’ and stirred for many hours.
During this stirring process, the sugars in the malt dissolve and drawn-off from the bottom of the ‘mash tun’. The resulting liquid is called 'Wort'. This stirring process is usually carried out three times, with the water temperature being increased each time to extract the maximum amount of sugar. Only wort extracted from the first two times of the stirring process is used. The third lot is put back into the next batch of new grist.

3. Fermentation

The ‘Wort’ is now mixed with yeast in large containers and the fermentation process begins. During fermentation, the yeast converts the sugars in this mixture to alcohol. The liquid obtained at this stage, called 'Wash', has low alcohol strength like beer or ale. This liquid is now distilled to make whiskey.

4. Distillation

Distillation is the process to separate impurities from the ‘Wash’. Distillation is carried out by placing the ‘Wash’ in a large copper container called a ‘still’. Copper helps remove impurities better than any other material. The ‘Wash’ is heated in a still and the evaporating gaseous liquid is condensed and carefully collected. Depending on the location and maker’s choice, whiskey’s are double or triple distilled. The collected liquid or we can say ‘spirit’ (due to its high alcohol level), now goes through the last stage i.e. Maturation.


5. Maturation
The extracted spirit is now stored in oak casks, which give it the final flavoring addition, and left to mature in casks for at least three years. In some parts of the world, the maturation process can be lower as well but traditionally three years is the benchmark. The spirit stored in oak casks absorbs the air through the porous wood, and over time gets some unique characteristics.