In Depth // The Fun of Fermentation - A chat with Teeling’s Master Distiller & Brewer + the Crafted to Create project

Sometimes, I’d like to delve deeper into a specific topic involved in the making of whisky. Today, that topic is fermentation, specifically Teeling’s Master Distiller and - Brewer Alex Chasko’s take on it, and how Teeling implemented the process in a localized cocktail competition called “Crafted to Create”.

Text is © Mickaël Van Nieuwenhove
Photography is © Teeling Whiskey Distillery and © Yannick Van Dyck

Earlier this week, I attended a zoom-meeting intended to judge Belgium’s winner of the “Crafted to Create” cocktail project, organised by Teeling. Its focus lies more on the communal aspect of such a project, as contestants are urged to learn from each other, rather than compete against each other. In that way, it’s less of a competition, and more of a showcase: what can be done with a couple of guidelines and 5cl of Teeling’s small batch expression? Quite a lot, it turned out!

The rules were refreshingly simple. For Belgium, the theme of the project was “Fruits of Labour”, focusing on implementing Teeling Small Batch, an optional additional base spirit, home ferments, fresh (dried / tropical) fruits, and acid solutions (lactic, tartaric, citric, malic,…). Besides these basic requirements, all styles and/or methods were allowed.

Before we did an overview of the contestants’ creations, Teeling’s Master Distiller and - Brewer Alex Chasko talked about his personal experience with fermentation, and his general thoughts about the topic. Below, you can find an overview of what I learned during his talk. Obviously, this is not a chemical analysis of fermentation, but I hope it offers some interesting information about a process which is easily 120 million years old.

Teeling’s Master Distiller and - Brewer, Alex Chasko.

Fun with Fermentation - Alex Chasko’s Passion Project

First off, when we are talking about fermentation in this context, we are talking about yeast, a fungus which extracts high-sugar materials, and produces ethanol and carbon dioxide in the process. In other words: sugars are transformed into energy, water, alcohol, and, well, bubbles.

It’s yeast’s specific metabolism that is the reason for this. I did not know, however, that the alcohol is actually a waste product. In the words of Alex: ‘there’s no such thing as a yeast that considers humans as overlords. It is completing a process that humans can use in their lives’. Paraphrased, it means that humans found out about this natural process, and used it for their own benefit.

There are millions of wild yeast strains, and just like certain plants, fruits, vegetables, and animals, they were selected and cultivated by humans, based on their specific characteristics.

Those characteristics are incredibly varied, but all of the yeast strains seem to have something in common: while transforming sugar-high materials, esters are also created, giving specific notes to the fermented product. That’s why some yeast strains are used to introduce ‘pear’, ‘passion fruit’, ‘mango’, and many other ‘fruity flavours’ to beer.

Yeast uses these esters to attract for example fruit flies, which are helping the yeast to spread. As it is has such a simple biological design, it cannot spread on its own. It’s nature’s clever trick to make sure one organism can move from point A to point B, without having to develop its own means of transportation.

You might think that the reason for this is that yeast, at one point in evolution, started mimicking the scents that were produced by fruit trees. But this is not true! It’s actually the reverse! Fruit trees are mimicking the esters created by yeast strains during fermentation. Mind. is. Blown.

As, biologically speaking, fruits orchards are a lot younger than yeast strains, ‘yeasts got there first’. This means that the flavours we classify as ‘pear’, were actually mimicked by the pear tree in order to attract pollinators. I know. Pear trees did not ‘invent’ their own scents. Mind-boggling!

As we know, yeast strains are vital to create certain beverages. For brewers and distillers, it makes sense to try and figure out how one specific strain creates a specific scent or flavour. Even more important is to try and figure out how to replicate these conditions. Figuring out the chemical formula for this might result in some people getting very rich.

Luckily, fermentation is not something that is easily simulated. The ‘art of brewing and distilling’ is still very much a labour of love. This is because the only two ‘reliable’ tools a brewer or distiller can use to figure out how yeast strains create these specific esters, are ‘smell’ and ‘taste’. There are no other scientific methods to recreate these processes that provide the desired results. Instead, it’s more about ‘figuring it out as you go along’, and that simply doesn’t work in clinical circumstances.

In the world of fermentation, the unwritten rule is to not be afraid of ‘getting your hands dirty’. And that can be taken quite literally. From spraying Cantillion beer on the walls of the fermentation room to kick-start wild fermentation in the fermentation room, to hanging meat above the open fermentation vats, brewers and distillers have developed their own unique methods to ‘help nature a little’.

The open wooden fermenters at the Teeling distillery.

Coming back to the man himself, Alex explained that he started getting into brewing and fermentation when he was introduced to the craft brewing scene in Portland, Oregon, somewhere in the nineties.

At that time, the American brewing scene started to focus on Belgian and German beer tradition, resulting in a great experimental atmosphere, with a focus on creating American versions of various beer styles.

One of these breweries was the Bridgeport brewery, which probably introduced the world to the first proper ‘American IPA’. It was there that Chasko started his career, but it did not take long before he moved to Edinburgh to study for a degree in Brewing and Distilling at the Heriot-Watt University. From there, Alex moved on to the Irish Cooley Distillery to work as an innovations manager. And in 2015, he was hired by Jack and Stephen Teeling as a master distiller.

At the distillery, Chasko supervises wooden open fermentation vats, which have the ability to start spontaneous fermentation without introducing yeast strains. Because of the porous nature of wood, wild fermentation naturally occurs, and produces a fermented product which contains sour notes. Interesting if you want to create refreshing summer-y beverages, but maybe not if you want to focus on whiskey production.

Teeling’s focus on yeast has led them on a path of discovery and experiment. On their website, I found that they “trialed many different strains of yeast including champagne, ale, cider and wine before settling on a blend of distillers yeast and South African white wine yeast.  The distillers yeast allows efficient conversion of the sugars to alcohol while the white wine yeast produces fruity esters that impart a tropical fruit, citrus flavour to the wort. “ (More can be found on https://teelingdistillery.com/distillers-diary-science-distillation/ ).

The focus on fermentation is but one small part of the innovations that are happening on the level of whiskey production at Teeling. For a full overview of Teeling’s focal points, please check a previous article that I wrote: The Teeling Brabazon Collection & The Future of Teeling. In it, I talk about cask maturation, speciality malts, and double - and triple distillation.

Speaking of triple distillation and maturation: the fruit forward nature of Irish whiskey is the result of the presence of esters and aldehydes, achieved through this triple distillation and maturation. It’s one big story, and everything seems interconnected. I love an approach which is both all-encompassing and in-depth.

As an afterthought, Alex mentioned that yeast is not the sole method to introduce fermentation. Alternative methods include bacteria, certain types of mold, and even seawater fermentation, which is a ‘down the rabbit hole discipline’ on its own.

And the winner is…

After Alex’s talk and some follow-up questions, we were treated to an overview of the cocktails made by the contestants. Interesting enough, most of the mixologists decided to add mango or pine-apple to their cocktails. This makes sense, as the Small Batch was matured on rum casks, and the fruits mentioned above are tropical, and great ingredients for summer cocktails!

The winner of the evening was Yannick Van Dyck, the Belgian spirits and drinks writer known as Mr. Negroni (@yannickvd on Instagram), who wpn the grand prize of 2 unreleased Teeling expressions and a hand-made Teeling cocktail apron with his twist on the classic clarified milk punch. And with classic, I mean classic!

Milk clarification is mentioned in David Wondrich’s guide on punches, simply called “Punch”, which was published in 1711. And since Teeling’s roots go back to the second half of the 18th century, this style of punch is automatically linked with the distillery.

As ingredients, Van Dyck chose Teeling Small Batch, lime juice, orgeat (almond syrup), Angostura Bitters, and fermented Kefir milk (wow!). A perfect choice, it seems, as it offers up more links with the distillery’s chosen expression.

Lime juice and orgeat are often used in rum cocktails, so naturally the rum finish of the Small Batch is brought to the center of the cocktail in this combination.

But how does the fermented Kefir milk factor in this creation? Well, after the cocktail is mixed, it is poured over the Kefir milk. This causes the milk to curdle. Afterwards, the liquid is poured through a coffee filter, which ‘clarifies’ the drink to a clear beverage.

Making this cocktail takes time, though, as the clarification can take a while. It is advised to clarify the liquid a second time if the cocktail is still too ‘cloudy’.

Yannick actually chose the name of the cocktail based on the clarification process: ‘At first, it doesn’t look like much, but after clarification, a beautiful clear liquid emerges, like a phoenix rising from the ashes!’

Milk clarification is done through a coffee filter. The curdles can be used as snacks for your dog, which makes this a zero-waste cocktail!

“The Rise of the Phoenix”, the last link with Teeling, and I believe this addition knocked it out of the ballpark. The name’s there, but so are the ingredients and the cocktail style and method. Bravo, sir!

The bonus of this cocktail method is that this drink can be prepared up front and be kept for a while. Clarification was invented to preserve beverages, so it’s an excellent cocktail to prepare in bulk for a party.

And since it can be stored for a couple of months in a vacuum bag or closed bottle, I think I might just order my own version of this cocktail via mail…

I mean, a guy’s gotta try new things, right?

Yannick’s “Rise of the Phoenix” looks good, sounds good, and probably tastes even better!

A big thanks to Chris Hayes, Teeling Global Brand Ambassador, and Yannick Van Dyck for providing additional information and visuals.