Back to the Future at Holyrood!

Previous Quaichshop blogs have covered the planning and opening of the wonderful Holyrood Distillery, just down the road from us in The Pleasance, in the South Side of Edinburgh.  Located in the Old Engine Shed, the distillery is a stone’s throw away from the Parkside Street tenement in which my mother and her family lived, and from the site of the former Usher’s Brewery, where my maternal grandfather and uncle both worked as coopers.

As we have previously noted, the Holyrood Distillery is the first new distillery within the city for 100 years, and it sits over the “charmed circle” – the ready supply of excellent water which has served as a source for distilleries and breweries over the centuries.

Researchers from Heriot-Watt University’s International Centre for Brewing and Distilling have begun working with the distillery to apply some science to help to investigate the possibility that the use of heritage barleys, including one 200 year old crop, might lead to the production of distinctive new flavours, aromas and textures, to be created at Holyrood.  Eight heritage barley varieties will be the subject of experiments over the next few years to put a scientific handle on the classification of the aromas and flavours which they can contribute to new whiskies.

Amongst these heritage barleys to be investigated, in partnership with Heriot-Watt, are the 200-year-old Chevallier variety, which was once popular in the UK, until tax rule changes apparently led to its demise.  A Moravian barley (Hana) from the  (now) Czech Republic, originally used to make the first blond Pilsner lager in 1842, will also feature in the studies.  Closer to home and the present day, Golden Promise barley from the 1960s will be also be distilled, which finds a happy home mainly in the the UK’s eastern coastal regions.

Doctor Calum Holmes from Heriot-Watt commented: “New varieties of malting barley are developed regularly to improve processability and agronomic traits, and it’s not uncommon to find some predominate the industry for a period of time.

“There’s hope that using these heritage varieties of barley might allow for recovery of favourable aroma characteristics into distillate and some have also displayed potential resilience to stresses that might be expected from in a changing climate.”

Holyrood Distillery hopes to produce new single malts, as a result of the research work exploring the impact of heritage barley varieties on malt and distillate quality.

Marc Watson, head of spirit operations at Holyrood Distillery, said: “We’re a young distillery and that means we have the freedom to experiment and be playful.

“We decided to try making some mashes and distillations with Chevallier. It was fascinating. The first thing we noticed was an oilier mouth texture, it had a great mouth feel.  We think there are clear sensory differences with using heritage barleys, but we wanted to back it up with science.”

Best of luck to this innovative partnership as they seek to reintroduce characteristics which have disappeared over the years, as newer varieties of barlery have been employed, and so allow the modern day whisky drinker to experience for themselves some aromas, flavours and textures which they may not previously have encountered!

 

Acknowledgement: Many thanks to The Spirits Business and Robb Report for raising awareness of these developments in the whisky industry.