MAKING
HYDE

At HYDE we are passionate about the age old craft of ‘Bonding’ and purveying smooth Irish whiskey to our very strict HYDE quality standards.

We carefully hand select only the very finest Irish whiskey, made by only the very best Irish whiskey distilleries, which we then in turn ‘finish’ in a variety of vintage oak casks sourced directly from distilleries and bodegas around the world.

We also source ‘new make’ whiskey, made to our own very strict specifications, from two great Irish distilleries. This ‘new make’ whiskey spirit is then laid down for many years in our own casks at the Bonded warehouse in Little Island, County Cork to age and mature.

In order to be called an ‘Irish whiskey’ the whiskey must be distilled and matured on the island of Ireland. It must also age in wooden barrels for three years with a Minimum of 40% ABV.

PREPARATION

Various grains are ground and cooked. Barley is malted, a process of soaking the barley and spreading it for about three weeks, allowing it to sprout, and drying and heating it.

MASHING

The cooked grain and malted barley are added to warm water, which converts into a liquid known as mash.

FERMENTING

The mash is added to a fermentation tank, along with yeast. the yeast converts the sugar to alcohol. after three or four days, the resulting liquid is about 10% alcoholic and is known as distiller’s beer, or wash.

DISTILLING

The wash is heated to the point where the alcohol turns to vapor, but the water remains liquid. The alcohol is then collected in a second container. This process is repeated to produce “high wine” or “new whiskey.”

AGING

Water is added to the high wine, which is aged in wooden barrels, usually made from charred white oak. Here the whiskey ages at least three or four years, and some are aged up to ten or fifteen years.

BOTTLING

The resulting whiskey is stored in glass bottles, which do not react with the whiskey’s flavor.

SINGLE MALT

HYDE Single Malt Irish whiskey is made from 100% malted barley grain from one distillery source in Ireland. It is double distilled in a traditional Copper Pot Still to our very strict HYDE specifications.

BARLEY

The Barley quality plays a very significant role in brewing performance. Barley quality can vary from year to year depending on the annual harvest conditions. For this reason barley selection remains crucially important when making a pure single malt Irish whiskey which is made using only 100% malted Barley sourced in

Ireland. The barley used to make HYDE Single Malt is sourced in Cork County. Cork is famous for its fertile soil, rich limestone which is ideal for growing Irish barley.

MALTING

There are three stages to malting barley; Steeping the grain in water; Allowing the barley to germinate and sprout, and finally drying the malted barley using hot clean air. No peat smoke is used when drying the malted barley for HYDE Irish whiskey, as would generally be the case in with most Scotch whisky brands.

MILLING & MASHING

To produce Single Malt Irish whiskey, barley grain is milled to create a flour called grist. In a large tub known as a ‘Mash Tun’ the grist is then added to hot Irish spring water and stirred to create the ‘Mash’. It is here that the conversion of starch to fermentable sugar takes place to produce a hot, sweet liquid known as the ‘Wort’.

Once all the starch has been converted into fermentable sugars, the wort is then drained off leaving behind the spent grain known as the ‘draff’. The draff is then sold to farmers who feed it to their cattle.

FERMENTATION

During fermentation distillers’ yeast is added to the sweet ‘Worth’ liquid. The yeast consumes all the fermentable sugars and in doing so creates alcohol and carbon dioxide. Once fermented, the wort is now called the ‘Wash’. This contains about 10% to 13% alcohol at this stage. Once it has been left to ferment for a period of three days, the wash is then transferred to the Copper Pot Still to distil off the excess moisture and produce the high strength alcohol.

COOPER POT STILL WHISKEY

Making whiskey in a copper pot still is the traditional Irish way of making Irish whiskey.

This traditional copper pot still produces the more complex flavour profile. One of the characteristics of a coper pot still whiskey is that it is more full bodied.

DISTILLATION

Distillation is the process whereby alcohol is separated from water. The wash is heated and at 78C Celsius the alcohol begins to vaporise. This vapour is cooled, collected and distilled for a second time. Hyde whiskey is double distilled to produce a more rounded ‘big’ whiskey with more character. We believe that double distillation is better than triple distillation when it comes to producing a single malt with a more robust character and spicy flavour.

MATURATION

After distillation the 80% ABV spirit strength is reduced with local filtered Irish spring water to between 60-70% alcohol and is put into handpicked oak casks and stored in a bonded warehouse to gently mature over time.

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SINGLE GRAIN

HYDE Single Grain Irish whiskey is made from Corn grain on a continuous three Colum copper still. It is triple distilled, non-blended, pure grain whiskey from one distillery source.

A continuous three Column still allow what is termed as ‘fractional distillation’ as various different compounds ( or fractions ) are trapped according to their boiling point on different floors or columns of the continuous still. Thus allowing each component of the distillate to be removed as it progresses onto the next column.

In the continuous three Column still the first Column is called the Analyser Column which has steam rising and wash descending. The Wash enters the top of the still column and falls to the floor to meet steam rising from the bottom floor of the column. The steam vaporised the alcohols in the wash and carries them upwards while the wash ( with its alcohol removed ) falls to the floor of the column still where it boils and creates more steam.

This first Analyser column (also known as the stripper column) strips the alcohol from the ‘wash’ and produces the ‘high wines’ at 65% to 70% alcohol by volume.

The second Extractor column starts the rectification process.

The third Rectifier column extracts the alcohol from the heads ( fore shots ) and tails ( faints ) produced on the first two columns.

As the spirit passes through the three columns it becomes progressively purer.

In continuous column distillation still it’s all about two big factors: The grain raw material and the strength to which the spirit is distilled. However it is the impurities left in the spirit that gives us some of the whiskey flavour. It follows, therefore, that a very pure spirit will have less flavour, like a vodka. A very small percentage of congeners ( impurities ) are required to deliver the initial whiskey flavour the rest of the flavour work is done over the following years by the oak wood casks into which HYDE whiskey is placed.

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