Grain, water, yeast—and CO₂? On average, crafting a single 750-milliliter bottle of liquor results in some 6.5 pounds of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, equivalent to burning a third of a gallon of gasoline, a recent report from the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable concluded.
Specifically, making whiskey is such an energy-intensive enterprise because it requires weighty raw ingredients to be trucked over long distances. And distillation itself is a largely inefficient process—heating the stills and maintaining temperatures only to keep less than 40% of the final distillate once you discard the heads and tails. An immense amount of grain produces relatively little liquid: Approximately 100 kilograms (222 pounds) of cereal will make 600 liter of mash, yielding up to 87 liters of 80-proof whiskey. Creating all those barrels and glass bottles has an immense carbon footprint, too.
As with other industries, consumers are demanding better, and whiskey makers are clamoring to claim at least some commitment to the cause.
Buffalo Trace—among the biggest whiskey makers in the U.S.—recently joined with the University of Kentucky to help promote the long-term sustainability of white oak, the wood used to make bourbon barrels. Johnnie Walker, the world’s largest Scotch producer, is ambling in the right direction with its Next Steps Initiative, which pledges to reduce the distiller’s carbon footprint by 15% before 2030.
An ecological approach can also be an economical one in several key elements of production. Harnessing the heat of wastewater in a closed system, for example, is ultimately cheaper than paying to have it treated and reintroduced to the municipal supply. Gifting the spent grain of fermentation as cattle feed sidesteps the cost of having it carted away as refuse. Growing your own grain is even better, removing the fuel necessary to transport it to the stillhouse.
Advancements in solar technologies, heat reclamation systems, rainwater collection, and ways to more efficiently direct energy and temperature management: These are being built into operations including Company Distilling, a project from Jack Daniels’s former master distiller that’s set to open later this year in eastern Tennessee. Anaerobic digesters have come a long way since they first started making their way into distilleries in the 1980s. It’s not uncommon for operations to produce 30% to 40% of their energy from the waste/spillage that they create during production.
Time, as with everything whiskey, is key to achieving meaningful sustainability—and cutting through greenwashing marketing efforts. Brands are all too eager to advertise that they are employing environmentally conscious methods: planting trees, offsetting carbon, etc. Yet more often than not, when you dig through the marketing material, you find that it’s just that.
Here’s a look at the bottles you can buy now that have already been maximizing green in the grain in a real, impactful way.
Marble Distilling Co.
For its Hoover’s Revenge Ragged Mountain rye ($66), this Carbondale, Colo.-based distillery sources its grains from a farm less than a mile away. A full 100% of the water used on-site—from fermentation to distillation, to proofing down, to heating and cooling—is reused, saving more than 4 million gallons of runoff per year. The whiskey itself is round and robust, thanks to the inclusion of high-altitude wheat in its mash bill.
Bowmore
Malting is the process by which barley is heated and readied for fermentation. Although in Scotland it was traditionally done on perforated floors at the distillery, it largely takes place off-site in massive industrial kilns these days. Since 1984 on the Hebridean isle of Islay, Bowmore has been utilizing a heat recovery system to keep the past alive—and low impact. Hot air rolling off the stills is piped to the malting floor during the heating process. The system also heats the local community pool, which sits in what was once a distillery maturation warehouse. And even as Scotch prices soar, the 25 Year Old single malt ($400) remains one of the best value luxury labels on the market.