Whisky Boys – Back to School (again), Week 8
It’s Tuesday 8th November 2011 and it is only me (once again) that is on my usual train to Glasgow Queen Street, for my final weekly trip to the Glasgow Metropolitan College. It’s week 8 of John Lamond’s Advanced Whisky Trail and this weeks topic is “Energy“ .
In John’s lecture tonight we found out how much energy is needed in the Whisky Industry and what do they do with the waste heat and waste produce that is generated.
Some of the uses of waste heat are Bowmore Distillery heating the town’s swimming pool and North British Distillery heating their local primary school, but some have started and due to certain reasons were unable too continue for example, Glen Garioch’s heated tomato greenhouses and Tamatin’s ill-fated eel farm.
We also learned about the use of other waste products other than heat, the spent wash and draff can all be converted into energy/electricity and used in the Distillery or in some cases fed into the national grid.
From this very informative lecture we found that some distilleries not only provide grand drams but are energy producers in their own right.
In this, maybe the last week in the very entertaining and informative Advanced Whisky Course, John Lamond once again pulled the stops out and set up a grand 8 bottles for our blind tasting session to finish off week 8.
As usual all the students had their glasses and water at the ready and the pouring of some fine Whiskies commenced, and they were:-
Co-op – Single Highland Malt
Black Grouse – Blended Scotch Whisky
Tobermory 10 Year Old – Single Highland malt Whisky
Arran – Island Single Malt, The Icons of Arran – The Westie – distilled 1998
Buffalo Trace – Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Laphroaig 10 Year Old – Single Islay Malt
Jameson 12 Year Old – Blended Irish Whisky
Grant’s No. 2 – Blended Scotch Whisky – Cask Edition Sherry Finish
Well there we go another fantastic night in the company of all the students we all now know very well and our lecturer, John Lamond, finishing off another evening with a very diverse selection of Whiskies.
We all agreed on this night that Tuesday evenings will not be the same, so as we all have each others e-mail addresses I am pretty sure that the call will go out for a reunion in some Whisky hostelry so we can chew the cud on our courses and all things Whisky, I am sure that the students will give an invite to John Lamond to join us.
We all departed this evening in high spirits clutching our certificates, so to all the students I enjoyed your company and banter and to John Lamond thanks for imparting some of your knowledge on Whisky to us all.
