The History of Milford

Every single malt whisky has a story to tell

Few, if any, have a tale comparable with ours. Our history touches the history of New Zealand. It involves our South Island landscape. More than this, Milford represents the determination of earlier generations to match the finest single malts they had known in the distant corners of their Scottish homeland.

Those that conceived this ambition, unwittingly provided The New Zealand Single Malt Whisky Company with a limited volume of supreme quality single malt, when they first laid our casks to mature. As, once made, this single malt was forgotten. Time passed. People moved away. The knowledge of it all but disappeared. Its casks of single malt slept for a decade, undisturbed, overlooked, unknown. Some have lain still longer. The distillery, the last such in New Zealand was dismantled. The story seemed to end.

"The casks, though, continued the slow, silent process of caring for their maturing treasure."

Their discovery is a story too long perhaps to be told here. Suffice it to say that a whisky of a superb quality and unique heritage has been brought into the daylight. It has inspired our aspiration to resurrect the distillery, to trace the original distillers, to do justice to our rich heritage, to recapture and match this exceptional single malt.

We have, undoubtably, high standards to meet. Those that created Milford knew more than a thing or two about quality. Its maker in New Zealand's most Scottish of cities, Dunedin, used the very finest of barleys. Around them, as we do today, they have the advantages of the matchless New Zealand environment. As they knew, snow melt from the Lammerlaw Range between Lawrence and Middlemarch runs into the Great Moss Swamp in the upper catchment of the Taieri River. From here, the fine peat and pure water were both drawn.

So the story has not ended. For, of course, the story of a single malt whisky is also one that's told in colour, style, taste. And here, Milford will reward you as it has the palates of the worlds most discriminating tasters and enthusiasts. Milford single malt whisky has, it is not too much to say, been a revelation.

The superlatives are many. The bottles are few.

Single Malt

THE APPELLATION

The term SINGLE has a very precise meaning. It indicates that all of the whisky in the bottle was made in the same distillery. It is the product of a single distillery and has not been blended with whisky from any other distillery.

The term MALT indicates the raw material. The whisky is made exclusively from malted barley and no other grain, sugar or fermentable material. It is infused with water, fermented with yeast and distilled in a pot-still.

There are 100-odd malt distilleries in Scotland. Their products are the only Malts that may be called SCOTCH. A whisky must be distilled and matured for at least three years in Scotland in order to bear that appellation. The term "Scotch" cannot be applied - but the term "Single-Malt Whisky" can - to examples made in Ireland, somewhat experimentally in North America, and in New Zealand and Japan. These countries, however, have only a handful of distilleries between them.

While most bottles of single malt contain a vatting of several production runs, some are filled from a single batch. Such a whisky is sometimes identified as a "Single/Single". This means that it is a single malt from a single barrel. A single barrel might fill fewer than 250 bottles.

The Glenfiddich is a true single malt, but also uses on its label the term "Pure Malt", as if to wear both belt and braces. This is perhaps foolish, as the singularity sounds to be diminished by the term "Pure". On the labels of some other products, the term "Pure" indicates that, while the content is all pure malt whisky, it may come from several distilleries. This is true of several minor brands, especially in export markets. Any importer, distributor or store-chain can create its own brand - let us say Glentammy - and fill its bottles with whichever malt whiskies are available and attractively priced. The contents of its bottles may vary from one year to the next. Some countries with no malt distilleries buy whiskies from Scotland and vat them under a national label.

A minor and diminishing category is the "Vatted Malt". This type of malt whisky is made in exactly the same way, but with more commitment to a distinct character.

WHY SINGLE MALTS DIFFER

While some spirits, such as gin and vodka, can be made anywhere without influence on flavour and require no costly ageing, single-malt whisky is one of those drinks that is formed by its environment, from the local water to the shape of the stills and the climate during maturation. Each single malt represents a place, which also often provides the name.

Islay Pronounced "eye-luh", this is the greatest of whisky islands: much of it deep with peat, lashed by the wind, rain, and sea in the Inner Hebrides. It is only 25 miles long, but has no fewer than eight distilleries, although not all are working. Its single malts are noted for their seaweedy, iodine-like, phenolic character. A dash of Islay malt gives the unmistakable tang of Scotland to many blended whiskies.

MALTING: Barley has to be partially germinated before it can release its fermentable sugars. It is soaked in water until it begins to sprout, then this is arrested by drying the grains over heat. This sleeping and drying process is called "malting".

Traditionally, the Scots dried their malt over a peat fire, which gives Scotch its characteristic smokiness. A proportion of peat is usually still burned during malting.

MASHING: To complete the conversion of starch into fermentable sugars, the malt (which has been milled after malting) is mixed with warm water in a vessel called a mash tun. The liquid drained off it is known as "wort".

FERMENTATION: The sugars in the wort are now turned into alcohol during fermentation, which takes place with the addition of yeast, in a fermentation vessel.

DISTILLATION: This is the boiling of the fermented wort, in a pot-still. Because alcohol boils more rapidly than water, the spirit is separated as a vapour, and collected as it condenses back to alcohol.

THE POT-STILL

Single malt is distilled in traditional vessels that resemble a copper kettle, or pot, with a chimney-like spout. These are known as pot-stills. Most other types of whisky are made in a more modern system: a continuous still, shaped like a column, known as a column-still.

Much of the flavour of the malt is retained in pot distillation because this old-fashioned system is inherently inefficient.

A column system can distil more thoroughly, but that makes for a less flavourful spirit. Blended Scotch whiskies contain a proportion of pot-still malt, leavened with continuous- or column-still whisky made from cheaper, unmalted grains.

The shape of the still

The flavour of the distillate is greatly influenced by the shape of a pot-still, in ways that are not wholly understood. An example concerns stills that are especially tall. Vapour condenses in the upper reaches of the still before it can escape, falls back, and is re-distilled. This produces a more refined, lighter spirit. A shorter still will produce a richer, creamier, oilier spirit. Between these extremes, there are countless sizes and shapes of pot-still. Every aspect of size, shape, and surface area seems to enter a new permutation into performance. Distillers are reluctant to change the shape or size when new stills are fitted, for fear of losing the character of their whisky.

Most malts are run through two linked pot-stills: the wash-still and the spirit-still. In one or two Lowland distilleries and in Ireland, a system of three pot-stills, "triple-distillation", is used.

THE INFLUENCES OF LOCATION

The two spirits most often compared for their regionality are Cognac and single-malt Scotch. In Cognac, the regions of production are contiguous, stretch about 90 miles from one end to the other, and are all in flat countryside. The single malts spread over an area of about 280 miles from one end to the other, from the southern Lowlands to the northern Highlands, from mountain to shore, from the Western Isles to the Orkneys. Cognacs are usually blends, often from more than one region, while a single malt bears the character of just one distillery.

Water

Producers of several types of drink talk in bushed tones of the importance of their water. Nowhere is it more genuinely significant than in single-malt Scotches. The water used in the single malts is usually not treated, and each distillery's supply has its own character. The character of the water is influenced not only by the rock from which it rises, but also by the land over which it travels to the distillery. For example, in the Highlands, much of the water used in distilling rises from granite and flows over peat. Water from a mountain stream that flows over rocks may pick up minerals on its journey, adding firmness and crispness to the finished whisky. Some distilleries have water that flows over peaty, mossy, reedy, ferny or (most often) heathery moorland. This may impart grassy or herbal characteristics. Heather recognizably adds floral and honeyish notes. Some water flows over peat, and whiskies have a peaty flavour from the use of the fuel in malting, and some from both sources. The distance the water flows over peat will also be an influence as will the character of the peat. Water may make its presence felt several times. It is used to steep the grains in the handful of distilleries that have their own maltings, and then again in the infusion that precedes fermentation and distillation. It may also be used to reduce slightly the strength of the spirit off the still before maturation. Some distillers feel they achieve a better maturation if the spirit is reduced in strength by a few percentage points. The distilleries that have their own bottling lines also use the local water to reduce the strength of the whisky at packaging. When a new distillery is planned, a reliable source of good water will be a prime criterion in the choice of a site.

Rock

Some of the waters are believed to take several hundred years to filter through the mountains before emerging. In 1990, geologists Stephen Cribb and Julie Davison made a study of rock formations in Scotland's whisky regions, and compared them with tasting notes in books on the drink. Their findings suggested that the similar tastes in certain whiskies produced near each other might in part be due to the similar rock from which the water rose. For example, in the Lowlands, the crisp, dry, Glenkinehic and Rosebank share the same carboniferous rock. The oldest rock is that which supplies water to the Bowmore and Bruichladdich distilleries on Islay, off the west coast of Scotland; it was formed about 600-800 million years ago, and seems to contribute an iron-like flavour. The granite of the Grampians is often credited with the typically soft-water character of the Speyside whiskies of eastern Scotland. In the north-east, sandstone may make for the firmer body of whiskies like Glenmorangie. Highly individualistic whiskies like Talisker and Clynelish turn out to be based on rock not shared with others.

Snow

The snow that covers the Highland peaks melts to provide water that seeps through fissures in the rock, then emerges into mountain streams before filling the reservoirs of maltings and distilleries. There is melted snow in most bottles of whisky. This is especially true where the Grampian Mountains form a ridge across the biggest land-mass of the Highlands, and small rivers like the Livet and Fiddich flow into the Spey on their way north to the great inlet known as the Moray Firth.

Soil

The soil will affect not only the water but also the character of the peat. If malting is done at the distillery, local peat will be used in the kilning. The age of the peat deposits, and their degree of grass-root or heather character, will have its own influence on the whisky.

Barley

Scotland grows some of the world's best barley for malting, and much of it is cultivated in whisky-producing areas, especially the Lowlands and the stretches where the Spey and other rivers flow over flat, very fertile land to reach the Moray Firth. This coastal rim can have surprisingly long summer days, and cool breezes, though the latter can strengthen worryingly at harvest time in late summer. For many years, the local Golden Promise barley was favoured by maltsters and distillers. Its short straw stands up to the wind; it ripens early (in August); and it produces nutty, rich flavours. As the industry has grown, farmers have moved to varieties that give them more grain per acre, and distillers to varieties that yield more fermentable sugars - but these do not necessarily produce such delicious flavours. When Macallan experimentally made one batch with Golden Promise and another with a higher-yield barley, the difference was startling. The lesser variety produced a whisky that was clearly thinner-tasting, "dusty" and almost metallic.

Temperature

A cold location makes for low temperature spring waters. When very cold water is available for use in the coils that condense the spirit, and the ambient temperature is low, an especially rich, clean, whisky is produced. Distilleries in shaded mountain locations are noted for this characteristic. The oak casks used during the maturation of the whisky expand and contract according to the temperature. The greater local extremes of temperature, the more this happens.

MATURATION

Much has been learned through research in the 1990s about the influence of maturation on the aroma and flavour of whisky, but only in recent years has a scientific approach been developed. The production of whisky evolved empirically and for years its magic was taken for granted.

Wooden casks were originally used simply as containers for the freshly distilled spirit; the ability of spirits to develop with age was appreciated later. Although the benefits of maturation are said to have been known earlier to wealthy cellar-owners, whisky was not systematically aged until the late nineteenth century.

Choice of wood

Among the woods used in the production of alcoholic drinks, oak is by far the most widely favoured. It is strong, yet pliable, and makes excellent casks. In theory, all Scotch whisky is aged in oak. In practice, a cask made from chestnut or mahogany very occasionally turns up in a distillery. On the very rare occasions when this happens, no one can remember how the cask was acquired. Although cask acquisitions are monitored carefully today, this was not always the case. Most distilleries have thousands of casks, some acquired 50 or 60 years ago.

Scotland is a mountainous country with plenty of pines but few oaks, and in the early days, wood from England was used. Then the Scots began to take advantage of the English...

ORIGINS OF THE SPIRIT

Distilling may have come from the Orient, via the Moors, to Spain and Europe. There is some evidence of distilling in Ireland at the beginning of this millennium. The first indisputable reference in Scotland is an entry of 1494 in the archives of the National Exchequer. It records the purchase of Malt by Friar John Cor, of Dunfirmline (the former capital city of Scotland) to make aquavitae.

Aquatvitae, "the water of life", indicates simply spirits.

Rendered in Irish and Scottish-Gaelic, the term becomes 'uisge beatha', or 'usquebaugh', among other spellings. These Gaelic names, sounding to the English speaker like 'uishgi', were corrupted to 'whisky'.

OIL AND WATER?

Some say that whisky as a drink has suffered from the notion that you'll "spoil it" if you add water. It is our opinion at the New Zealand Malt Whisky Company that whisky taken neat at 40 to 46 % abv is just too much for some palates. We feel that there's nothing wrong with adding a splash of water if you prefer.

Not every one agrees though. A recent website poll asked "Water with Whisky", Yes or No?

It was a close one with 'Yes' coming in at 44% and 'No' taking 38%, and maybe collecting a sneaky 18%. Either way it is a 100% vote for drinking whisky!

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