How to Marry Harry by Nikki Perry & Kirsty Roby

Author:Nikki Perry & Kirsty Roby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pink Van Publishing
Published: 2021-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Jo loved the distillery. It was a little way out of the main village in a gorgeous old stone building with a ton of charm. Kelly had a great way of explaining the long and involved process without it sounding boring, or as if she were in kindergarten and wouldn’t understand if he used big words.

For a product with only three ingredients, there were a lot of factors that affected the final product, she’d come to realise. Kelly showed her the malting room first.

It had once been a traditional malting house, he explained, where the soaked barley was spread on the floor to sprout. Now, Kelly told her, they used large rotating barrels to turn the barley and keep it warm.

“When my da was young, he used to help turn the malt. It was a bugger of a job by the sound of it and the old-timers always ended up with something called monkey’s shoulder from all the repetitive shovelling,” he laughed. “I was always fascinated by that. Thought it meant they got hairy arms.”

They both chuckled. Kelly had a lovely laugh, Jo thought. Deep and rumbling.

The malt went into a kiln to be dried, and Kelly still used peat for heating this, explaining that that was an important part of the flavour. Jo found the smell of the malt rather lovely. Sort of like grilled bananas and strangely comforting.

“The malt is ground and turned to grist. Then we add warm water and the soluble sugars get extracted,” Kelly said.

“Where does the water come from?” Jo asked, hoping that wasn’t a dumb question.

“From the local Mire Loch. It’s beautiful, pure and fresh,” Kelly boasted. Jo loved how enthusiastic he was when he talked about his work.

“I’m envious,” she confessed to him. “I wish I could do a job that I felt so much heart for.”

“What work do you do yourself?”

Jo told him about her job as a proofreader. “I don’t dislike it, I’ve always loved learning about new things,” she told him, “but I don’t have a passion for it.”

“Aye,” Kelly nodded. “Makes it much less like work when you love what you do.”

Once the malt had become mash, it went into a big vessel called a turn. There, the sugars dissolved and were drawn off the bottom several times.

Jo felt like writing notes, so she could remember all the temperatures and facts involved.

Kelly led her to the washbacks next. These were big stainless steel tanks where the fermentation happened. Back in the day, Kelly told her they used to be wood, but modernisation meant they’d gone for more hygienic, easy-cleaning options. The yeast was added here, so the smell in the room was similar to a brewery. The wash then went into stills. Jo thought these were the most impressive part of the place. Two huge copper bowls, with long necks, one larger than the other. They had been hand-beaten, Kelly said, by a friend of his grandfather.

“The stills can have different neck lengths, depending on the flavour you’re after.

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