After Mashing the liquid (called wort) is pumped to fermenting vessels. At this stage there is much in common with brewing; In beer making this liquid would be known as “sweet wort” until the hops have been added, where it becomes “hopped wort.”

Traditionally the period of fermenting for the wort at a distillery would be as much as 4 or 5 days but nowadays this has, in most cases, been reduced to as little as 2 days; this reduction helps maintain the strength of alcohol that is initially created during fermentation because, if left longer, a secondary fermentation occurs, adding further desirable flavours but slightly reducing the alcohol level in the process.

It is a irrefutable fact of modern, large batch alcohol producers that time and efficiency of alcohol production plays a role in modern brand ‘integrity’ - or in other words what they save here they can employ in marketing costs to help drive sales volume.