The cereal varieties making a splash in Scotch whisky
Wherever a Scotch whisky may end up, its journey will always begin with the seeds of a cereal crop. The UK’s Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB) produces an annual Recommended List of favoured crop varieties that are tested for yield and disease resistance, among other parameters. For the 2023 harvest, the AHDB included 13 varieties of two-row malting barley on its spring barley list, and three varieties on its winter barley list.
If you want to distil with that malted barley, rather than brew, the list gets narrower. The Maltsters’ Association of Great Britain’s Malting Barley Committee (MBC) only had four varieties in its 2023 approved harvest list. Laureate is king among these; first put on the AHDB Recommended List in 2016, it now accounts for some 50 per cent of the UK’s spring malting barley market, favoured for its high and stable yield performance. Alongside this are KWS Sassy, LG Diablo, and Firefoxx. One other, Fairing, is MBC recommended for grain distilling use.
In this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that newer whisky makers, wanting to make their mark, lean away from recommended varieties. But the facts don’t support a very gung-ho attitude to grain. If buying on the open market, opting for a lower-yielding, less widely available variety is likely to increase the cost and could expose you to greater price volatility if a year’s harvest doesn’t perform as expected. If you’re able to cultivate your own crops, or contract local farms to grow for you, giving up acreage and resources to a crop that may not deliver the expected returns and will almost certainly yield less than a competing variety should set off your business-sense alarm.
However, there are distilleries in Scotland that have taken the plunge — whether in the name of science, heritage, or just producing better whisky.
March 2023 saw Bruichladdich Distillery launch the first whisky to date distilled with Islay-grown rye. Named The Regeneration Project, it came about following a conversation in 2016 between the distillery’s production director and a farming partner on more sustainable agricultural practices. This is not Bruichladdich's first rodeo in grain experimentation — its Barley Exploration series has shone a light on Bere barley, an ancient grain that the distillery began working to reintroduce to Islay in 2005 in collaboration with the University of the Highlands and Islands’ Agronomy Institute.
Soil health was also on the agenda when Arbikie Distillery launched its 'climate-positive' Nàdar Gin in 2020. It is distilled with a base spirit made from peas, which don’t require added nitrogen fertiliser to grow, avoiding the negative impact this can have on soil and water quality. The Angus distillery launched its 1794 Highland Rye the same year, and other young distilleries including InchDairnie and Lone Wolf have since laid down casks of rye spirit. The crop's long, fibrous root system helps to improve soil drainage and means it can more efficiently extract nutrients from the soil compared with barley.
Crafty Distillery in Dumfries and Galloway has been using a spirit distilled from locally grown wheat to produce its Hills & Harbour Gin since 2017. In 2020 the distillery laid down casks for its inaugural whisky, Billy&Co (named for founder Graham Taylor’s late father). Head distiller Craig Rankin and the distillery team used a “scientific, inclusive” approach to create their Lowland single malt, including exploring the flavour profiles of different barley varieties and yeast strains.
Such practices are becoming increasingly common among Scotland’s whisky makers. Holyrood Distillery in Edinburgh, which has a range of new makes showcasing its experimentation with brewing malts and yeasts, is a prime example. Long may these grain-led innovations continue.
This content was first published in Scotch Whisky in April 2023.