Glenfiddich Explorers

Water supply

By Ludo

The first thing to consider when looking for an ideal distillery location is a water supply. Whisky production requires a lot of water. In fact, there is generally more water in a bottle of whisky than alcohol (40% alcohol by volume = 60% water by volume).

Water is needed during 3 stages of malt whisky production: mashing, filling and bottling.

Mashing – which is when water is used to extract the malted barley’s natural sugars – is the stage which requires the largest quantity of water. Glenfiddich alone uses over half a million litres every day for this process!

Filling – which is when the new-make spirit is filled into oak casks for maturation – does not necessarily require water but the standard practice in the industry is to reduce the spirit strength after distillation from over 70% to 63.5%abv, which is generally accepted as the ideal maturation strength.

Bottling – when the mature whisky is filled into bottles – also requires a fairly large amount of water. After a few years’ maturation, the whisky’s strength will still be around 60%abv, so water is again needed to reach the perfect bottling strength.

William Grant had been working at a local distillery for 20 years before he started building Glenfiddich, so he knew he needed a high quality, high volume spring. That’s why he chose the Robbie Dhu springs, located high in the Conval Hills. Nearly 120 years later, we still use the very same source. In fact, Glenfiddich is the only single malt that uses the same Highland spring water at every stage of its production.

Best regards,

Ludo

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