Society Bottle
As you know we had a wee tasting panel made up of twenty Society Members who were entrusted to choose your next Society bottle. They each received three miniatures and were asked to assess them and cast their votes in the order of preference. The panel chose cask number 4 from 2001 from a fresh bourbon cask, followed very closely by number 7, also from a fresh bourbon cask.
The labels have been printed, and the cask bottled, and we are now ready to get the show on the road. The number is very limited, so will be on a first come first served basis, one per member. The cost for this one is £36.00 plus p&p and I would ask those of you who would like to order to e mail me at society@springbankwhisky.com
As this is the last Society Bottle of the year, and it is approaching Christmas we have decided to give you a little Christmas gift with your bottle. We have ordered some Glencairn nosing glasses with the Society logo on them, and we will include one of these lovely glasses with your bottle. The glasses will be available for sale to Society members at a later date.
You can read some of the panel’s tasting notes in the Springbank forum under general discussions then under “Society bottle winner” and “Society bottle have your say”.
We do intend to make this a regular practice so that Society members are more involved in what we bottle for you. We will, however, announce the fact that we are looking for a tasting panel in the forum before it is announced in a newsletter, so if you are not on the forum yet, and are keen to join in, please go into the forum and register. If you have any problems when you try to register either e mail me or telephone me and I will try to help you.
Springbank CV 20cl Sets
We now have the Springbank CV 20cl sets available for sale both in the online shop and in Cadenhead Whisky shop. The sets are made up of Springbank, Longrow and Hazelburn CV and are priced at £35 less your 10% discount, so price to members is £31.50 plus p&p. Check out the website for an image of the set – a very nice gift pack.
Local Barley Prints
We sold quite a few of the local barley prints, but unfortunately some of our members are still waiting to receive their prints. We had placed our order with the supplier when we were asked for a few more, and it was too late to change our order. Apologies to those who are still waiting. If anyone is interested in buying one of the prints, which are numbered, and also have your Society membership number, please let me know, then when we have enough orders we will have another run of the print done.
Poetry Competition
We had a poetry competition last month, again announced on the forum, and had only two entries. We could not choose between the two entries, so gave each of the members a bottle specially labelled with their names as a prize. The poems will be put on the forum shortly.
We will try to have competitions on a more regular basis, but this is your Society, so tell us what you would like and we will take everyone’s suggestions into consideration.
Recent New Mercedes Launch
Springbank’s products were featured at the recent launch of the new Mercedes. The event attracted thousands of guests over 3 days, with Springbank, Campbeltown Loch and Longrow being the chosen whiskies. The bar was set up in the prestigious Maybach Room, for their most exclusive guests only.
You can see the pre event photographs on the forum, General discussions.
The Technical Bit
Mashing
The sole purpose of combining hot water and grist or mashing, is to extract the maximum amount of fermentable sugars as sugar wort from the malted barley.
Here at Springbank mashing takes place in a large circular vessel made of cast iron. It is equipped with a conventional rake and plow mechanism for stirring the mash and ridding the mashtun of draff. Gun metal drainage plates with a large number of small slits cut in them are laid on the mash tun floor to create a “ false bottom “. Connected to the bottom of the mash tun are drainage pipes and these pipes are connected to a collection vessel known as either a balance drainer or an underback. Grist entering the mash tun is mixed with hot water in a Steel`s mashing machine. During the mashing process starch within the grist is gelatinised allowing enzymes to attack and break down the starch and large degradation products into fermentable sugars.
Depending on malt types and harvest conditions the temperature of water and grist mixed within the mashing machine should be between 63.0 and 65.0ºC. Depending on the distillery and type of plant the ratio of water to grist should be around 4 to 1 when mashing in. Once mashing is complete the grist and water mix is left for a minimum period of time known as “ the stand time “.
Springbank Distillery has a conventional mash tun. Mashing in of grist and water takes around 20 minutes. After the stand time controlled drainage of the water, known as “ wort “ takes place until the mash bed is almost dry. A second water is then added to the grist bed at a temperature of around 70ºC. Again, controlled drainage of wort takes place until the mash bed is almost completely dry or to the point where the wort starts to turn cloudy.
The first and second waters are pumped through a heat exchanger commonly known as a worts cooler where the temperature is controlled to around 16 – 20ºC. The cooled worts are pumped to a fermentation vessel known as a washback. The total amount of worts collected from the first and second waters will equate to approximately three quarters of the volume of the washback. The original gravity of the worts collected from the combined first and second waters will be in the order of 1048 – 1070 dependent on the distillery.
A third and, sometimes a fourth water, will now be added to the mash tun at temperatures of between 80 and 90ºC. These liquors will be used for mashing during the subsequent mash.
After draining all four waters the grist, now known as draff or wet grains, is removed from the mash tun by mechanical means. Springbanks mash tun has large rotating paddles know as “ stirring gear “ which are used to stir the grist bed and to assist in the removal of draff. Draff can be sold to farmers in its wet condition where it can be used as a good “ filler “ for sheep or cattle. It contains around 4% protein and 1% fibre. In its wet condition draff contains around 80% moisture.
As always, if you have any questions or wish to add to the discussions in the technical section please feel free to email us here at the distillery.
Cheers
Stuart
Distillery Manager
Malting
The production team have been malting some barley recently. Here’s a photo of one of the guys laying the floor.
NEW WHISKY BAR AND SHOP, MILAN
A new Cadenhead’s Whisky Bar has opened at Via Poliziano 3, 20154 Milan, Italy. Contact details: telephone 0039(0)2 3360 5592 or e mail whiskybar@cadenhead.it website www.cadenhead.it
As usual, your comments are welcome.
Slainte
Janet
for Springbank Society
J & A Mitchell and Co Ltd, The Tasting Room, 9 Bolgam Street, Campbeltown, Argyll, PA28 6HZ
Registered in Scotland, registration number 3582
Tel : + 44(0) 1586 552009 Fax : + 44(0) 1586 553232 website http://www.springbankwhisky.com
To Join the Springbank Society please email Janet at society@springbankwhisky.com
