At each of our themed whisky tastings we try and focus on a different aspect of whisk(e)y or whisk(e)y-making, selecting the whiskies we taste according to our theme. Our most recent whisky tasting took place last week Thursday, and we looked at unpeated versus peated whisky.
Peat is often described as a sort of precursor to coal - it forms in waterlogged environments where plant material accumulates, gets compressed, and partially decomposes. When harvested and dried out, peat can be used as a fuel source.
One of the first steps in whisky production is malting barley - this is done by soaking barley in water for a few days to kickstart the germination process (which releases enzymes in the barley that convert starch into fermentable sugars). These days, if you’re making unpeated whisky, hot air will usually be used to dry the barley and stop germination. But if you’re making peated whisky, the barley will be dried with the aid of a peat fire. The smoke from the peat fire permeates the barley, infusing it with a distinctive smoky flavour that you can detect in your whisky.
Peating whisky was originally a necessity rather than a choice. In areas like Islay, other fuel sources were often scarce, so whisky makers used peat to dry their barley. Today, it’s a deliberate choice that distilleries make in order to create specific flavour profiles in their whisky.
It’s worth keeping in mind that not all peat tastes the same - the specific smoky flavour you get from peat can vary by region, depending on the vegetation in the area the peat is harvested from. For example, peat from Islay and other Scottish islands is more likely to come into contact with water and contain some decaying seaweed and mosses, which can produce a more maritime or medicinal smoky flavour. Peat from the Scottish mainland tends to be drier and contain more wood, resulting in more of a woodfire or barbeque type of flavour. Because of this, it might turn out that you're not a fan of smoky whisky from Islay, say, but you may quite like smoky whisky from other regions in Scotland (or other parts of the world - Scotland is not the only country that produces smoky whisky!)
At our tasting we also very briefly spoke about some peat alternatives that distilleries are starting to play around with - in part because producers of whisky are always looking to experiment with different flavours and styles whisky... but also because there is some debate in the whisky world about the sustainability of peat-use. Peat bogs are protected environments, and the use of peat is strictly monitored. Reportedly, roughly just 1% of the total amount of the peat that is extracted in the UK is actually used for Scotch whisky production. There are also a number of restoration projects being carried out in Scotland’s peatlands, and distilleries are very mindful of the need to balance tradition with environmental responsibility. Yet some distilleries throughout the world are now looking more seriously at alternatives to peat. Perhaps the most interesting of which is a distillery in Iceland, which uses sheep dung to smoke their malted barley. Apparently, the use of sheep dung imparts a unique, earthy, and smoky flavour to the whisky - certainly something to keep an eye out for!
While there are plenty of unpeated and peated whiskies out there, we thought it’d be interesting to look at whisky producers that have made both unpeated and peated whiskies to do a side-by-side comparison of their unpeated and their peated offerings.
For this particular whisky tasting we selected the following 6 whiskies:
Benriach The Twelve: an unpeated 12-year-old single malt from the Speyside region of Scotland.
Benriach The Smoky Twelve: a peated 12 year old single malt from the Speyside region of Scotland.
Loch Lomond Single Grain: an unpeated single grain whisky from the Highland region of Scotland (which unlike most other grain whiskies, is made from 100% malted barley).
Loch Lomond Inchmoan 12: a peated 12 year old single malt from the Highland region of Scotland.
Douglas Laing’s Scallywag: an unpeated blended malt whisky (made from the combination of malt whiskies from the Speyside region, including Mortlach, Macallan and Glenrothes).
Douglas Laing’s Rock Island: a peaty blended malt whisky (made from the combination of malt whiskies from various Scottish islands, including Islay, Arran, Orkney and Jura).
The first two sets of whiskies made for an interesting tasting opportunity as we tried to decide whether or not there was some distinctive distillery flavour profile that was common to both, in spite of the huge upfront variation in flavour that peat affords. Tasting the final set of whisky, however, was a great way of getting a broad overview of what unpeated versus peated whisky has to offer. Each of these blended malt whiskies incorporated a number of different unpeated or peated malts from a range of distilleries in specific whisky producing regions in Scotland known primarily for either unpeated whisky (Scallywag from the Speyside region), or peated whisky (Rock Island from the regions of Islay as well as the Islands).
And the answer the question: to peat, or not to peat?
Well, as per usual, tastes differ. We found at our tasting a predictable mix of those who much preferred the unpeated to the peated whiskies, and those who have a real penchant for smoky drams. Peated whisky can be kind of like marmite in terms of its divisiveness, with many people either absolutely loving it, or intensely hating it. Newcomers to whisky are often warned away from peated whisky. But we’ve actually found that more than a couple of people who thought they weren’t fans of whisky have been converted after tasting some smoky whisky!
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