The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Bonnet helps lift the lid on Angels’ Share
Losing spirits to evaporation during maturation is an accepted part of the distilling business. However, The Scotch Bonnet Company believes it has an answer.
For generations reducing the Angels’ Share, loss to evaporation when maturing spirits in oak barrels, has perplexed the drinks industry.
But now a Dundee-based business has come up with a revolutionary solution to this age-old problem.
The Scotch Bonnet Company has invented a specially-designed “cap” that is placed on the top of palletised spirit barrels which is intended to slow down the evaporation loss.
From recent controlled tests it has saved as much as 5.5 kilos of cask strength spirit per barrel over a 42-month period.
“The bonnet came about through our main business interests, which is constructing maturation bonds for the Scotch Whisky industry,” said co-founder Ross Morrison, who is also chairman of Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC.
“The bonds that we have built were all for palletised barrels. Barrels that are stacked upright. In our time in the industry one of the main complaints from distillers has been the loss of whisky due to evaporation. The Angels’ Share.”
“My good friend of 40 years – (Cardboard) Ken, owns a packaging firm down south. He’s an expert in all things cardboard and fibreboard. We put our knowledge, experience and skills together and ‘The Scotch Bonnet’ was born!
“We were carrying out some building work for a major drinks manufacturer at the time and asked their head of maturation if he’d give us his professional opinion of The Scotch Bonnet.
“Immediately he loved it and although he suggested we changed some aspects of the design, he was convinced the basic principle of the bonnet would work.
“He agreed at that time to run controlled tests on the bonnet at one of their large maturation sites. To get such a positive and enthusiastic reaction from someone that is very well respected in the industry gave us a great deal of encouragement and bonnets were duly delivered.”
With tests having been run, the results were positive, confirming that the bonnets did indeed reduce the amount of liquid lost to evaporation.
“The readings and weights we received from the tests confirmed that, on average, the barrels that had our bonnets on them, saved 5.5kg of cask strength spirit compared with the control barrels with no bonnets,” added Mr Morrison.
“The results we have had are massively encouraging and when the results come in from the other spirit producers we hope that they will prove that the bonnet can produce the same savings on rum, tequila, Bourbon, Canadian whisky, Irish whiskey etc., basically anything that matures in a wooden cask.”
It is a problem which has vexed the experts for generations. How do distillers retain the Angels’ Share, which sees their produce and profits, literally, evaporate into thin air?
Dundee’s Scotch Bonnet Company may have the answer.
Its new cap could save more than five kilos of spirit per barrel.
The design is currently a closelyguarded secret.
But distillers the length and breadth of the country will be thanking the heavens and raising their glasses for this spiritual gift.