"Beerkit-whisky"

whisky is made from malt, and here I had malt (bakers malt and dark beer kit)...

"I don't recall overthinking it much back then. I was going to make whisky, whisky is made from malt, and here I had malt. The fact that one was meant for people brewing cheap and easy beer at home, and the other was sitting among the baking supplies at Rema, really just made it more interesting."

What happened..

My first attempt at whisky didn't start with selected Scottish malts or refined yeast. It started with a discount homebrew kit from Europris, baking malt from the local grocery store, and a bag of sugar. The logic seemed simple enough: whisky is made from malt, I had malt, and adding sugar meant more alcohol for the effort.

At the time, I didn't question why I was using grain if I was relying on white sugar to boost the yield. That realization came much later.

While it’s easy to mock a ingredient list bought at a discount shop, the experiment produced a surprising result: it actually tasted good.

The ""whisky"" was far from elegant, but it boasted an unyielding, intense malt character—like someone had taken the concept of malt whisky and turned the volume up to eleven.                                                                                                                                It was distinct, heavy, and unmistakably "whisky-ish."                                                                                                                        

That initial success was perhaps the best thing that could have happened. Had it failed, I might have given up.                           Instead, tasting something genuinely good made from makeshift ingredients sparked an obsession: What would happen if I did this properly—starting directly with the grain, crafting the flavor profile before fermentation, and taking control of the raw materials myself?

Whats next.....

"Naturally, I started wondering what would happen if I did this properly. Not necessarily 'properly' according to the rules of the Scotch Whisky Association or following the recipe of a Scottish distillery. That didn't interest me all that much. But what if I started with the grain itself? What if I chose the raw ingredients myself, processed them myself, and built the flavor before fermentation instead of buying it ready-made in a tub?

That’s where the corn came in.

Bourbon seemed simple enough.

Corn, a bit of other grain, fermentation, distillation, and oak.

And there was certainly no shortage of corn.

I found twenty kilograms.

Chicken feed.

That should probably have been a subtle red flag as to where this was heading, but at that point, I mostly just felt like I’d landed a bargain."