A truly traditional Distillery

Where good stuff is made

At The Grythyttan Distillery we use the finest malt from the rich, fertile fields of Sweden.

2 of whisky's essential ingredients - malted barley and clear spring water - are brought together in the mash tun. The malted barley is ground into grist - a coarse flour that is mixed with heated pure spring water from the nearby hills and then poured into the mash tun. 

A slowly rotating set of mash knives lift and sift the mash to ensure good sugar drainage. In the mash tun, the natural bubbling chemistry and clouds of steam rise, filling the air with a pleasantly pungent aroma.

The hot water completes the conversion of starch to sugar, which dissolves into the water, producing a sweet liquid called wort, some hours later. The wort is drained, cooled and made ready for fermentation. The draff (the left over barley from the process) is fed to the wild animals on the farm. 

Yeast is added to the wort as it is pumped from the cooler into the traditional wooden fermentation vessels, the wash backs. Our handmade wash backs are made of Oregon Pine rather than the stainless steel that many other distilleries use. This is a traditional method of production we know will add a certain character to the whisky. 

These wash backs will be a towering 2 meters - yes, we are small, and filled to within 0,5 m from the top. The fermentation raises the temperature from about 19°C to around 33°C.

The resulting carbon dioxide gas creates a massive, hot frothing head to the wort that almost foams up to the top of the wash back. We don't use any mechanical beaters or antifoam.

After 62 hours of fermentation, the furious bubbling subsides, leaving a brown liquid of 7,5 % ABV, similar to a strong beer, the wash.

The heart of the distillation process lies in the still house, where the wash is distilled in copper pot stills.

The stills are heated with steam. The wash in the still is gradually heated until the alcohol turns to vapour. The vapour rises through the narrowing neck of the still and is guided downwards and through a water-cooled condenser. This condenses the vapour into an intermediate liquid, known as Low Wines. The low wines, containing about 20 % alcohol, are heated in a spirit still, a smaller versions of the wash still.

The vaporized alcohol is drawn off and condensed as before, and then trickles down into the spirit safe, where the flow of spirit can be controlled. The still man runs the operation of monitoring the distillation; any mistake can ruin the whisky's flavour. Only the fine middle cut, or heart of the distillation, is retained for maturation.