George Grant on the Coffey Still

George S Grant (1923-2002) was chairman of Glenfarclas Distillery in Speyside for fifty-two years. His ancestor, John Grant, had purchased the distillery back in 1865 and it has remained in the Grant family ever since. George's son, John LS Grant, is the current chairman. In this audio extract, originally recorded for 'Moray Firth People' in 1983, George talks to Sam Marshall about the Coffey Still.<br /> <br /> Interviewer: Now, having - thinking back to the Coffey Still, what was the process like before he introduced this new process of distillation?<br /> <br /> Essentially what we're still using today, which was germinating the barley to convert the starch to a sugar, grinding it obviously, then extracting it with hot water, fermenting it, and distilling.<br /> <br /> Interviewer: Whereas, what happens in the Coffey Still?<br /> <br /> The Coffey Still is - They start off with unmalted cereal, normally maize. They use a certain amount of malted barley which they use in a mesh tank with cooked maize. They cook the maize to a glutinous mess, so to speak, put it into a pressure cooker for this, then they use the malted barley to get the starch conversion which is then fermented and then pumped into a continuous still. The big saving is on fuel with the continuous still as opposed to the batch distillations we use