Welcome to the latest Summerton ClubWHISKY REVEALED

Dan Humphrey (founder of Summerton Whisky Club) poses the question to Miika Lipiäinen (Kyrö Distillery Company Co-Founder):

How does making rye whisky differ from single malt?

“For Kyrö making rye whisky is a process of fully understanding the grain from the perspective of flavour and making sure as much as possible of it gets through to the end product. This already takes us to a different path compared to barley and single malts, since rye has a much more pronounced core flavour profile. In Finland this is accentuated by nature as our very short, but light-intensive growing seasons keep the grains small but at the same time packed with flavour. When we add malting of rye to this equation it’s not the cheapest way to produce a new make spirit, but it is incredibly flavourful.

From a technical point of view, rye offers plenty of challenges. Rye does not have a husk like barley does and therefore traditional lautering is not going to work. There’s also a frothiness and stickiness that wreaks havoc in pumps, mash tuns and pot stills and their reflux heads. Our approach has been to accept these facts and build all our equipment and processes around working with 100% unfiltered rye mash bills with no barley or other grains involved.”