[View of Seagram logo.]
[View of grain field.]
Fine Whisky, Canadian Rye …
[Transport truck drives into factory.]
It all begins with a grain and a long tradition of distilling craftsmanship.
Quality ingredients for a quality whisky, spicy rye, sweet fresh corn, crystal clear water, yeast and malt. [View of ingredients.]
Here at Waterloo we use a hundred metric tonnes of grain a day. [Truck carrying grain is uncovered.] That's four truckloads of a thousand bushels each. But we are tough customers. Every shipment must undergo rigorous tests by quality control before it is accepted. [View of quality control laboratory.]
What are we looking for in grain? [Technicians smell and sieve grains.] Well, sweetness and freshness in the case of corn, a spicy aroma for rye, even the size and regularity of the kernels can make a difference. The reason is here beneath the golden skin of the kernels. [Close-up of corn kernels.] It's the yellow and white starch, [close-up of rye kernels,] because this carbohydrate changed into fermentable sugars can be fermented with yeast to make alcohol. [Worker walks along transport truck.] Sounds simple? Well, there is more to it than that! [Worker unloads grain from truck.]
First off, after the grain has been approved, is the milling department where the rye and the corn are ground to form a course meal to allow the conversion enzyme to do its work. [View of ground meal.]
Just what is the malt enzyme? Traditionally barley is used to make malt. Let's take a closer look at how it is made.
[Close-up of barley grains.] Here on the left a barley grain. Next to it, swollen with water, one that has been soaked for two days. Germination begins, shoots and roots appear, which means that the converter enzyme which changes starch to sugar is active. After three days, germination is halted by kiln drying, locking the active enzyme inside the barley.
[View of malt being ground and transported on an assembly line.] In a malting house, malt is made in large quantities. Its wonderful properties are appreciated by the food industry and the brewer as well as the distiller. Without it the carbohydrate in grain could not be fermented, [worker opens cooker,] and it is here, in the great cookers of the distillery that the enzyme does its job on the corn and drying mash, which has been cooked with water to a thick porridge. [Simulation of molecules.] In the cooker in a microscopic world, millions of chain like molecules of carbohydrates are now being broken up into the enzyme into shorter molecules, making it into a type of fermentable sugar. It is a very significant transformation that is taking place, preparing the mash for fermentation. [Worker takes sample from the cooker.]
Every batch may include a different ratio of grains and by design, different recipes for different whiskies.
[External view of fermenting building.] After cooling down to around twenty-one degrees Celsius, it is pumped over to the fermenting room. [Internal view of fermenting room.] A great hole where the bubbling mash gives off a sweet familiar smell. It is the aroma of yeast at work. [Worker takes sample from vat.] For here in the huge vats, the mash encounters the yeast and fermentation will begin, the second step in the making of Canadian whisky.