As you read through Barnard’s ‘Distillery’ book, one of the first things you’ll notice is that the use of peat in drying the malted barley was much more common than it is today. Technology has moved on and today there are more efficient and economical means of drying barley but in Scotland of the 1880’s, peat was the fuel of choice. However, there were noted instances where peat did not play such an important role in some Distilleries, if any at all. For example at Port Dundas, his first visit in 1885, it’s stated that ‘hot air’ was used. No other details were given but it is likely that the furnaces at this Glasgow Distillery heated ducted air that was then forced up through the kiln floor and into the barley. This would have led to a lightly flavored and bodied whisky since the all-invasive smoke from the peat fires never touched the grain. Another alternative to peat as a fuel was coal coke. Coke is a coal derivative that has a very, very high carbon content. As a result, it burns very hot and is smokeless. Coke was more commonly found in the more urban settings of Glasgow, Inverness and Edinburgh as the rural and remote settings of many Distilleries made it impractical to transport large quantities of that material since peat could be cut from nearby fields. In some cases, coke was burned alongside peat in the same furnaces. This may have been due to cost and availability of either material. If peat was not so abundant or was still drying in the fields, coke was a fine substitute or an addition to help stretch the supply of peat.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 05:13:00 +0000
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