We all know and adore peated whisky, but is the character of whisky about to alter permanently in the face of rising worries about the viability of peat due to climate change?
How is Peat Made?
Knowledge of what peat is and how it is produced is essential for comprehending its rising worries. Peatlands are a marsh environment in which plant matter does not decompose entirely because of the high water content and low pH. For the most part, peat is just a covering of decaying organic material.
Peat consists of sphagnum grass, sedges, and bushes that grow in bogs. Waterlogged circumstances of peat bogs produce an oxygen-free and highly acidic environment, slowing breakdown and the release of carbon dioxide from the plants that would otherwise decay there. Over thousands of years, partially decomposed organic matter accumulates and is compressed to form peat.
Dried peat is excellent for fuel and fertilizer use due to its high organic matter composition and low labor requirements. Many whisky companies have traditionally used peat harvested from distant, treeless peatlands as a heating source and to dry fermented barley. Whisky gets its signature “peated flavors” from this process.
How Does Whisky Get Peat?
The two primary sources of wood are used in the whisky business. Neil Godsman runs Northern Peat and Moss, a company in Aberdeenshire that provides roughly two-thirds of Scotland’s peat needs. Godsman administers over 700 acres of wetland, but he cannot collect from 300 acres due to their SSSI (site of particular scientific interest) classification, as he describes in a piece for The Times. Later, he elaborates on how the business will be out of mining options within a decade because their 300-acre peat swamp in St. Fergus will have been entirely harvested.
Because of this, the quantity of peat accessible to the whisky business will drop by about two-thirds within the next decade.
Diageo, the world’s largest beverages company, “owns” the last third of the wood used to make whisky. Diageo has mining rights for a thousand-acre property at Castlehill, presently held by NatureScot, the Scottish Nature Agency, at their Port Ellen Maltings. This arrangement, however, is somewhat controversial, and we will discuss why in a moment.