Peat Elite member Dr Mike Billett joins us as a guest writer with a muse and subject that you might be familiar with: peat. In a six-part series, Mike will be taking us on a journey into the bogs, looking at the history of peat, its indelible link with Scotch Whisky, and deeper still into the world of phenols. Our journey will veer into the 1970s at a time of great experimentation, with a stopover in Skye, before setting off into the future to see how the use of peat will evolve into the rest of the 21st century.
A geologist by training, Mike set out on an unconventional and sometimes unscripted path through soil and water science to become a well-known peatland scientist with a Professorship in Environmental Change. Based in Scotland, he has researched and written extensively on the peatlands of the British Isles, Scandinavia and latterly the Canadian Arctic, focusing on water quality, carbon, peatland management and environmental change.
Since retiring from the academic world, in the last 3 years he has been researching and writing a book that combines his expertise on peat with one of his passions - whisky. “Peat and Whisky” is not an academic text or a history book, but a story of landscapes, science, places, people and their whisky. It looks back to a golden age of peat and whisky, as well as forward, to a more challenging future.
Whether it was a moment of serendipity or a deliberate flavour-led choice, peat is a word that is intimately related to whisky made in Scotland. The great whisky writer Michael Jackson was convinced that peat-smoke was the very essence of Scotch, referring to the smoky spirits made on Islay as 'the most Scottish of whiskies'. It was a harmonious relationship that started in smoke-filled bothies and small farm buildings that has evolved and stood the test of time.
The early distillers cut and burnt peat to fire their small stills and dry their malt, the tactile smoke particles adhering to the moist barley. It became ingrained in the flavour of their spirit and peat reek became synonymous with whisky made in the Highlands and Islands, distinguishing it from the inferior stuff distilled in the Lowlands, where local coal or even wood would be their fuel of choice. They produced a premium product, sold at a premium price and such was its reputation that more than 100 years ago Swedish and Japanese distillers journeyed to Scotland to learn the art of making peated whisky. Scottish peat was even being shipped to Australia to try and mimic a style of whisky made on the other side of the world.
Records show that in the late 19th century there were more than 60 working bogs in Scotland supplying peat to local distilleries or small independent malthouses. Cut by hand, dried on the moss, the annual harvest was carted to peat sheds in late summer. Distillery workers and their families found new work during the silent season, cleaning peat banks, ditching, cutting, throwing, stacking, carrying and carting. Their names maybe familiar, others not; Hobbister Hill (Highland Park), Machrie Moss (Laphroaig), Birnie Moss (Longmorn) and my favourite, the Faemussach (Glenlivet), “the filthy mire”. Local supplies were supplemented by large shipments from the islands of Orkney and Lewis to the mainland. The destinations of Orkney peat included Dalmore, Lochnagar, Glenkinchie, Glenturret, Glenmorangie, Ben Nevis, all distilleries that we wouldn’t now associate with the taste of peated whisky. There was a vibrant distillery peat trade and large quantities were bought and sold on the open market.
The expansion of the railway system in the Victorian age and the development of coastal shipping routes in Scotland, changed the relationship between peat and whisky. Coal was now more widely available, providing six times more energy than the same volume of dried peat, and as distilleries grew in size, coal-fired or indirect steam-heated stills, became the norm. Malt kilns started to be fired by smoke-free anthracite, coke, or coal mixed with peat. This coincided with the arrival of blends that changed the whisky world and attracted new consumers, particularly in North America, with a preference for a lighter, largely unpeated style of whisky.
Eventually many distilleries ended their reliance on their own labour-intensive floor maltings and started buying in malt from large, centralized producers. Local distillery peat bogs fell into disuse and harvesting switched to a small number of large bogs that began cutting their peat with machines. Heated air was used to dry the malt, with peat smoke switched in and out of the drying cycle as required using secondary burners.
But just at the moment the whisky world seemed to be turning away from peat - witness also the closure of Port Ellen, Brora and St Magdalene, all important producers of peated whisky - in the 1980s single malts started to gain more prominence in the market. Regionality and provenance became watchwords for discerning whisky drinkers and with that came greater exposure for peated single malts and a meteoric rise in their popularity. Smoky Talisker came out of the shadows to become one of the best-known brands in the world.
Peat and whisky have always had a dynamic relationship and although the current production of peated malt only makes up 10% of the malted barley produced for the whisky industry, peat smoke can be dialed up or down to produce an array of subtle flavour differences. New distilleries focussed on making peated whisky have arrived and innovative smoky blends, delivering a big hit or just a touch of peat, appear regularly on the market. We even retrofit smoky aromas and flavours into unpeated spirit by using casks that previously held peated whisky. One creative distiller has even experimented with injecting casks with smoke. Peat the fuel has become peat the flavour.
Despite what has recently been written there is no evidence that whisky makers are, “turning their backs on peat”. The appetite for a style of whisky created 400 years ago in the peat-rich country of Scotland appears to be stronger than ever.
