The first time I figured the guy had to be kidding me. "For the first two days of processing, beer and whisky are identical." Nobody in their right mind thinks beer and whisky are even similar, much less identical. Beer is fermented, whisky is distilled. Little did I know that beer and whisky use the same basic ingredients. Plus, the person in charge of the beginning stages of whisky production at a distillery is called (wait for it): the brewer! Which brings me to the reason for this column. Beer and whisky, like freedom, gang agley (to quote Robert Burns. It means something like "go together", only it sounds much better in Scots than in American, especially late at night after a few beers and some single malt as a chaser.) The basic ingredients in both beer and whisky are quite similar: malted grain, yeast and water (beer has an additional ingredient, hops, which is used for bitterness.) So why not a whisky column in a Beer publication?

Malted grain is immersed in water and allowed to germinate. The wet grain is dried out and allowed to sprout, making it possible to turn starch into sugars. This mixture is then ground up and mixed with hot water (which is called "liquor".) Once the slurry has changed from a mass of starch into sugars, the wort (a sweet, watery liquid) is ready to be boiled (at this stage, the beer wort is mixed with the hops.) The worts are boiled, cooled, then moved into the tanks where the yeast will interact with the liquid. While the beer wort is readied for fermentation, the whisky wort is readied for the distillation process. It is at this point that the two processes diverge (and about time too!) The whisky wort is then heated to just below the boiling point of water, allowing the alcohols (which evaporate at a lower temperature than water) to move up the still, passing over coiled copper tubing (called the "worm") where the vapors become liquid once again. Not all the spirit is turned directly into whisky, as there are many compounds in the liquid that can adulterate the flavor of the whisky. Once brought up to approximately 60% alcohol (by volume), the liquids (which at this point are colorless, just like gin or vodka), are filled into various kinds of oak casks and allowed to matured for a minimum of three years. At the end of this time, the product can be officially called whisky.

The fun is just beginning, however. Different casks, new or previously filled with various sherries, ports, wines etc. can affect the taste of a whisky. Both the style of the distilling stills (short, tall or whatever) and the area the casks are stored affect the taste of the whisky. Heat, cold, salt sea air, plus peat smoke used in drying the malt all contribute to the whisky that will eventually be bottled. Finally, the number of years the whisky remains in the cask also affect the final character of the whisky. The next time you think of having a beer, think of how you are really drinking the same things that are in whisky, only with a completely different end result. Isn't science wonderful?

Air do shlàinte ( "to your good health")

Beannachd leibh (goodbye.)