Malt Whisky.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 13, 28 March 1908, Page 13

Malt Whisky.

Most of the Highland distilleries are in remarkably beautiful spots—some amid the wildest and most pieturesqne scenery (writes Benjamin Taylor in the "World’s Work”). And one of the unsolved problems of the trade is why so much variety of flavour prevails. Broadly speaking, what is called Highland whisky is made from barley grown in the Highland counties, and malted with peat fires, the fumes from which rise up through a perforated ceiling and flavour while they dry the malt lying above. But, although a dozen or twenty or fifty distilleries were malting the same barley in precisely the same manner, no two of them would produce precisely the same results in the spirit distilled. The quality or flavour is said to be affected by the water used, yet distilleries using water from the same river or bum within a short distance of each other will yield

quite different results. Climatic effects may be suggested, but it is difficult to understand climatic differences within a radi'e of, say, a dozen miles on about the i 'me elevation. Whatever the true Ml

use, the quality of Highland whisky differs not only with the water used, but alse with the location of the distillery, ev*i» when the same,, or similar, native lArley and Highland peats arc used. Lowland malt whisky is made from a lower class of (largely imported) barley than that grown in the Highlands. For malting it peats are brought down from the Highlands. Lowland malt whisky lias not the characteristic or distinctive flavour of Highland malt, and it is usually know n as “plain malt” by blenders, who use it either to stiffen the grain whisky they employ in the blends or to cheapen the blending of Highland malts with grain. Ji