Whisky making takes three key ingredients of water, barley and yeast and transforms them into a delicious spirit to sip and savour. The process to create whisky follows a similar pattern across Scotland.
KEY STEPS IN WHISKY MAKING
At Tormore, our distillery is designed to create a fruity and elegant whisky full of bright peach and pear notes so it's important to take care to nurture those flavours throughout the whisky making process. A gentle touch is needed. Below you’ll hear how from the people who make Tormore themselves, explaining our careful and considered approach and how it helps our beautiful fruity flavours shine through.
Mashing in gently – a bright, clear wort gives a light, clean flavour
“We’re looking for a very clear wort to get that elegant style of spirit, so we do a lot of grist analysis to make sure it’s the right consistency. If it’s wrong, I’ll run down to the mill and adjust the rollers. A nice clear wort means the fermentation is light and frothy, giving time and space for the yeast to make all those beautiful congeners that give fresh fruity notes in the finished whisky”
Allowing our fermentation to take its time to nurture fresh, fruity flavour
“I tend to prop the door of the office open because I like to listen. If you start mashing in and the water isn’t coming in at the right speed, the motor sounds different. It’s just little details you pick up over time that help keep an eye on the particular character of our spirit – keep everything in balance - and also look out for the longevity of our equipment.”
Unique purifiers elevating bright fruity notes in our new-make
“The purifiers are a great bit of kit. Inside it, the vapour goes over the top of a baffle and anything harsher and heavier hits the baffle, falls down and goes back into the still. So it gives you a lighter kind of spirit.”
Carefully selecting our wood to complement the fruit-filled, elegant spirit
"From a blending point of view, it is all about respecting the flavours in the spirit and emphasising them. We focus on American oak for most of our casks including for sherry. The flavours of vanilla really compliment the fruity notes, like warm custard with peach cobbler, while the lower tannins mean the wood doesn’t overwhelm the spirit."
Attentive cask control for clean, bright flavour without interference
“It’s so important we check that the casks are good before we fill them, we take our time and carefully check all the casks that are delivered to the distillery... we nose every single cask before the spirit goes into it. This helps spot any quality issues – we don’t want anything that could spoil the bright, fruity notes of our whisky.”
Filling at particular strengths for gentle cask contact over time
“One of the really detailed things that is new is that we fill casks at different strengths depending on the wood - it’s lower for cream sherry than for bourbon, for example. They’re all below full strength because we’ve done experiments and it matures more gently, the liquid reacts better with the wood to get those fruity notes we’re after.”
This is Tormore Single Malt Speyside Whisky
Tormore Timeless
Tormore Aged 12 Years
Tormore Aged 16 Years
Tormore Timeless
Tormore Aged 12 Years
