Heads, hearts, tails: how a run on the 4,000-litre still works

A distilling day from six in the morning to the last drop.

At six the still is filled, around eight the first drops arrive. The heads smell sharply of solvent and are cut off.

Then the heart begins, the part of the run that goes into the cask. When it ends is decided by the distiller’s nose, not the clock.

The tails are collected and added back to the next run. Nothing is lost.