Distiller magazine

100 distiller minded, welcoming other entrepreneurs to distill their own makes. When you visit a Scottish distillery it's really the ready-to-drink whisky you're after. e walk- around is a must-do, the height of any tour emerges when you enter the warehouses. But here the making is it. All machinery dwells in a single hall. e first distillation happened on the 11th of February 2018 on a chaotic Sunday. Malt whiskey is the core of the business model but Agitator is open to all sorts of grain varieties like oats, wheat and rye. Free-thinker Agitator has a splendid motto: "We think new, freely and pro- gressive. We re-think the concept of whisky." e emphasis on brewing is obvious. Oskar Bruno stresses that the beer making defines what will happen next. "We want to pull as much as we can from the raw material, to maximize aromas. e brewing part is neglected by many distillers. e density of the worts is important, the higher the alcohol, the more esters." Oskar Bruno mentions three factors which set his process apart from others — hygiene, fermen- tation time and yeast type. Hygiene is instrumen- tal for brewers. Fresh worts are very sensitive to infections when they cool. "Brewers have separate lines that are kept clean," Bruno says. "In a distillery, different liq- uids must flow in the same pipes, with risk of bac- teria growth. Having brewing machinery like this makes us more professional." Agitator thinks like a brewer. ough 48 hours are sufficient for alcohol production, fermentation progresses for a whole week to allow all aromas to develop. Different kinds of brewer's yeast are used to create desired aroma profiles. "e yeast decides which aromas you get," Bruno says. "We wait for the worts to clear to achieve an estery wash. A certain yeast culture will be a per- fect match to different whisky styles. So you have to picture the flavor profile you want beforehand." Agitator's main whisky type will be a medi- um-peated single malt. It's made from 30–40 ppm peated barley malt combined with saison yeast used to produce wheat beers. "e peated worts have a stroke of clove," Bruno says. For the unpeated style, Oskar Bruno uses half a kilo of Trappist brewer's yeast and 1.3 kg (2.9 lbs) distiller's yeast, combining aroma and alcohol production. Higher strength at 10% gives a fruit- ier beer richer in esters. Using less water saves both time and energy. e stills make the whisky, stresses Bruno. "ree factors define the character," he says. "We use different still shapes, we employ vacuum inside the apparatus and [we] regulate the energy input, meaning the speed of distillation." Agitator has four stills working in tandem. e high-reflux duo is taller, making cleaner, lightly peated spirits. e low-reflux pair have a more conventional Scottish design that creates heavier, more muffled aromas suitable for a smoky style. But the real game-changer is the Italian engi- neers' vacuum process. e boiling point is low- ered by 30°C (86°F) in the first distillation and 5–10°C (41–50°F) in the second distillation to save energy, and more importantly creating an entirely different chemistry. "We don't get that toasted note in the first dis- tillation since no proteins get burnt," he says. "Cleaning goes faster as well. e lower boil- ing point produces less fusel oils, thus giving a purer distillate." Here Bruno is talking about the Maillard reac- tion, where heated proteins react with sugars to create a toasted or burnt note. e brown surface of hard pretzels is an example of the Maillard effect. Another example is when you apply egg to buns baking in the oven. e egg proteins react with the sugars in the dough, resulting in a lovely Spirit safe, Photo © Lars Ragnå

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