Grain to glass is one of those phrases that gets used a lot in craft spirits. It means different things at different distilleries. Here's what it means at Barking Owl.
We start with grain
We source locally where possible — rye and barley from farms in the North East. The grain is milled on site, mashed with hot water to convert the starches to fermentable sugars, cooled, and transferred to our fermentation vessel.
Fermentation
We ferment on site for five to seven days depending on temperature and what the wash is doing. The yeast is doing most of the interesting work here — converting sugar to alcohol and producing the congeners that will eventually become the character of the spirit. It smells incredible and slightly strange in equal measure.
Distillation
We run the fermented wash through our copper pot still. This is where the separation happens — alcohol from water, desirable from undesirable. The cuts — foreshots, heads, hearts, tails — are made by hand, by nose. The hearts are what go into the bottle.
Why it matters
When you control the whole process from grain to bottle, you can adjust at every stage. You're not buying a neutral spirit and flavouring it — you're building a product from the ground up. It's slower, more complicated, and produces something that tastes like it was made with care. Because it was.
