BEER TO WHISKY PRODUCTION

Who am I: Producer

Established: 1999

Origin: Switzerland

Website: www.saentismalt.com

BRINGING BACK TO LIFE THE HARD WORK AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE ANCESTORS

The beer barrels are old oak barrels used to transport beer to inns until the beginning of the 1970s. The inside of the barrels was dabbed with pitch for reasons of hygiene, covered with a resin-type layer.

This was also done so that the carbon dioxide could not permeate through the pores and the beer did not taste of wood. Although the barrels were regularly re-coated with pitch, there were cracks in this resin layer and this is how over the decades a bit of beer continually found its way into the wooden staves.

The water evaporated and malt extract collected in the wood. It is precisely this malt extract that gives Säntis Malt Whisky its unique flavour and passes on ancient memories of beer.

This requires interplay between the wood and distillate and is the reason that the resin layer was removed and the barley distillate was poured in only afterwards.

Säntis Malt has made a name for itself faster than anybody thought possible. As a result the 27 Appenzeller mountain innkeepers wanted to serve Säntis Malt to their guests. Whilst most of them were happy just to do this, it was the «Gwonder» (= curiosity) of one Appenzeller, who wanted to achieve something even more special.

Sepp Manser, the innkeeper of the Meglisalp mountain inn, had found out more information and discovered that every now and then there were special editions of Säntis Malt Whisky from special barrels. This was why he asked whether he could have one of the uniquely stored whiskies for his mountain inn.

Brauerei Locher AG has always been open to new ideas and it therefore came about that the Meglisalp mountain inn was able to serve is own unique whisky in the summer of 2012. Something that was everything else but a spirited idea became an unexpected great success.

The journey is the aim

In 1998 Karl Locher, the owner of Brauerei Locher AG, asked himself the question of how it would be possible to recreate the aromas and beer extracts of old barrels. This was because almost by accident he had discovered his ancestors’ beer barrels that were 60 to over 120 years old during a renovation project.

Karl Locher, who is the fifth generation to manage the family company, also knew that in 1999 an old law from the Second World War forbidding the Swiss from producing spirits from the basic food of barley would be amended.