Did you know that you can visit the Isle of Jura whisky distillery and see for yourself how they make it?

In true Scots hospitality  they also give you a not so  "wee dram"

But before you can drink the Isle of Jura whisky it needs to be made!

Prior to the distillation of the whisky the barley must be ground to make a form of course flour. This is a fairly noisy but important process in the Isle of Jura Whisky Distillery achieved by the barley passing down a number of gravity fed milling rollers to form a grist.

The grist is then passed into large mash tuns with up to four times its own volumes of warm water to dissolve the sugars — retaining the solids to act as a cattle feed. (Don’t worry you will not see drunken cattle on the road as there has been no yeast added yet to produce any alcohol!)

The sugared juice (called wort) has still not started to ferment so yeast is added to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. Often during this rapid bubbling process it is possible to feel the huge stainless steel wash back tuns vibrate. Up to now there is very little difference between the brewing of some beers and the production of whisky spirits. It is only in the next stage the brewing of beer and production of Scotch Whisky begins to divide.

The large copper stills comprise of two pairs of almost identical size (shown above) and are amongst the tallest in the whisky industry. It is at this stage that the alcohol is removed with the alcohol boiling off at 80 degrees compared with water at 100 degrees. The first pair of stills (referred to the low wines stills) hold 48,000 litres between them.

The liquid is heated by use of steam coils with samples of the distillate being taken at regular intervals until the hydrometer reading shows no more alcohol remains. This is done over a period of eight hours. At this stage the distillate will around 21% alcohol. (The control panel and testing area just visible on the left side of the photo also serves as a viewing area for visitors on the whisky distillery tour.)

The second stage of the whisky distillation process takes place in the second smaller pair of stills. This distillation is taken even more slower with the stills running for eleven hours although the important required "middle cut" is only being taken for about a third of that time. Again here one of the steam coils is switched off during that middle cut to enable a better separation of the alcohol content.

At this point the distillate will be around 70% but diluted to around 63.5% alcohol with the addition of more spring water. However it is still illegal to call this alcoholic spirit "whisky". In addition it still lacks that distinctive flavour we would associate with Isle of Jura Scotch whisky.

Continue the tour of the Isle of Jura Whisky distillery