Let's talk about... peat

Make sense of how compressed vegetable remains become responsible for those powerful smoky aromas in Scotch whisky with this neat peat explainer video from one of our whisky lecturers, Dr Gordon Steele.

[@spykerf1545]

More Dr. Steele please!!! Great video.

[@raymaulder7383]

Thank you, very interesting, Islay and other smokey scotch are my favourites.

[@davidc6863]

Excellent and very informative. Thanks!

[@DP-ol1wh]

What an intelligent man who does an amazing job at (excuse me) distilling this information down for us laymen... It's almost like he's the personification of Scotch itself ha! Love these videos. Can we please get away from coloring.... please? I mean, at least when we are paying 60, 80, 100, 180, per bottle. I think at this level, the buyer does not care much about the color. I don't mind that my PC 10 looks like a Chardonnay. They should have to add caramel dye to the end of the ancient folklore about centuries old springs and creeks when it is added. I wonder if the wave of sherry casks is also an avenue to get the desired color without caramel.

[@stevec-b6214]

Very well presented. I want some right now!

[@HELLios6]

Nothing like a good peated scotch. Very interesting. Thanks.

[@gary412222]

Question. Do they use peat to dry the malting barley and stop the malting process before sending it to make the mash. Or is just to smoke the malt?

[@drax14QC]

I think it’s used to stop the malting process (though I’m not sure 100%..)

[@pkrockit]

Yes, the burning peat both dries and smokes the malt. Sometimes peat is only used for some of the initial drying process and it’s finished with some other type of heat source that won’t impact the flavour.

[@nickwilkinson5849]

Don't let Gretta Thumberg find out your burning peat.😁🥱🥴