Peated Whisky Guide

Peated whisky is whisky made from malted barley that has been dried or smoked over burning peat, so the smoke's phenolic compounds stick to the grain and carry through fermentation, distillation and maturation into the glass. At Macaloney's in Victoria, BC we smoke our own British Columbia malt on site with peat from several different bogs, so this guide is written from the smoker, not the shelf.

By Dr. Graeme Macaloney, Founder and Master Whiskymaker, with Satyam Pandya, Director of Operations.

Peated whisky at a glance

• Peat is partly decomposed plant matter, mostly sphagnum moss, that builds up over centuries in waterlogged bogs.
• ppm (parts per million) measures smoke compounds on the malted barley, not in the finished whisky.
• Light is roughly under 15 ppm, medium 15 to 30 ppm, heavy 40 ppm and up.
• Medicinal or campfire depends mostly on where the peat comes from and how narrow the distiller's cut is.
• Our peats: Washington State (Olympic Peninsula), Islay in Scotland, Sooke on Vancouver Island, and peat smoked with local sugar kelp.
• Our smoke: about 30 hours per batch, with the smoke kept below 40°C.

What is peat?

Peat is a dense, spongy layer of plant material that has broken down slowly in freshwater bogs and marshes over many years. It is mostly sphagnum moss, but every bog adds its own mix of rushes, heather, grasses and herbs. Once it is cut and dried it burns as fuel, which is how it was used to heat homes in Scotland and Ireland for centuries and how it ended up drying malt for whisky.

How does peat get into whisky?

Peat smoke meets the barley before the whisky is ever made. Damp malted barley is exposed to peat smoke, the smoke compounds stick to the grain, and enough of them survive mashing, fermentation, distillation and years in cask to shape the final flavour.

Most distilleries buy their peated malt ready made from a commercial maltster. We do it ourselves. Our malted barley comes from Gambrinus Malting in Armstrong, BC. We soak it and smoke it in a 2 tonne soaker smoker at the distillery in Victoria:

• A wood stove adapted to burn peat feeds its stack into a blower.
• The blower forces the smoke up through a perforated bed holding the malt, so it passes through every layer of grain.
• A batch takes about 30 hours of smoke.
• We keep the smoke below 40°C, usually 30 to 35°C, by controlling combustion air and how fast the peat burns. Islay peat burns hotter and needs the most care.

"We're not just buying peated malt and making whisky from it. We start with BC malted barley and do the smoke work ourselves, which lets us follow how each peat shows up in the new make and later in the cask."

Satyam Pandya, Director of Operations

Why do we smoke our own malt?

Graeme wanted to make a great peated whisky with Canadian barley, which meant there was no peated malt to buy. Micro malting kit was far too expensive and a traditional floor maltings needed space the distillery didn't have. So he visited the floor maltings on Islay and Orkney, sketched a soaker smoker based on the traditional Islay method, and asked his cousin Doug, a prairie grain farmer who builds and maintains farm equipment, to fabricate it. Six weeks later Doug hauled the 2 tonne unit over the Rockies on a flatbed and across on BC Ferries to the distillery. The first samples went to a laboratory in Scotland and came back at 54 ppm, a classic Islay specification made with Canadian ingredients.

Graeme's family roots run back to Islay, the spiritual home of peated whisky. Having built a smoker, he could then do something he couldn't do buying malt: smoke with different peats and compare them. That became the Peat Project.

What does ppm mean in whisky?

ppm stands for parts per million of phenolic compounds, measured on the malted barley, not the whisky. Labs measure a handful of these compounds (phenols, guaiacols and cresols) by HPLC, a standard chromatography test. Peat smoke contains many more compounds than that, so ppm is a useful guide to smoke level but it doesn't capture everything you smell and taste.

A lot of that smoke is lost on the way to the bottle, through fermentation, distillation and maturation. A common industry rule of thumb is that around a third survives, and a long aged whisky made from 50 ppm malt can end up with far less. We haven't measured our finished whiskies, so like every distillery we quote ppm on the malt.

How peated are Macaloney's whiskies?

Here is where our current peated whiskies sit. Every number is ppm on the malt.

Whisky	Peat level	ppm	Peat	Cask
Bang Sauce	Light			Portuguese red wine
Audit Failure	Light	13		Sherry butt
Double Down	Light	14		Oloroso sherry butt, single cask
An Aba	Light			Bourbon, Oloroso, red wine, virgin oak and PX
Siol Dugall (last bottles)	Medium	27		Bourbon, virgin oak and red wine
River Pirate	Heavy	54	Washington	Sauternes
Harvest Coast	Heavy	54	Washington	Six casks including Oloroso and PX sherry, red wine and virgin oak
Peat Project Cathedral Grove	Heavy	54	Washington	Virgin American oak
Peat Project Oloroso	Heavy	54	Washington	Oloroso sherry
Peat Project Pedro Ximénez	Heavy	54	Washington	PX sherry
Peat Project Red Wine	Heavy	54	Washington	Portuguese red wine

For context, the big Islay malts typically sit around 40 to 50 ppm and the lightly peated Scotch whiskies around 5 to 15 ppm. Shop the full range in Peated Whisky.

More ppm doesn't mean better whisky. It isn't a quality score. What matters is balance: how the smoke sits with the malt and the cask.

What does peated whisky taste like compared with unpeated?

Peat adds a layer of smoke on top of the malt and cask character. Depending on the peat, that layer can be soft barbecue smoke, campfire, burnt heather, earth, coastal notes or the iodine and medicinal notes people associate with Islay.

"Peat smoke adds a fourth dimension to whisky. It's not just about adding smoke. The smoke changes the fresh fruit in our unpeated whiskies into dried fruit in our peated whiskies. Try them side by side."

Dr. Graeme Macaloney, Founder and Master Whiskymaker

Why does some peated whisky taste medicinal and some like a campfire?

Peat smoke compounds fall broadly into phenols, cresols and guaiacols. Phenols and cresols lean towards iodine, medicinal and tarry notes. Guaiacols lean towards campfire, barbecue and bacon. Which ones dominate depends on two things.

• The peat. Each bog has its own plants, so each peat burns differently. The Islay peat we use is higher in phenols, which is why it leans medicinal. Our Washington peat is higher in guaiacols, which is why it comes across as campfire and barbecue smoke.
• The cut. The heavy smoke compounds boil off late in distillation. Distilleries chasing big smoke collect spirit for longer, in some cases down to around 58 to 60% ABV. We take one of the narrowest cuts in the industry to keep the fruity esters, which leaves many of the heaviest phenolics behind. That's why even our Islay peated spirit only carries a light medicinal note.

Does the origin of the peat change the flavour?

Yes. Peat is formed from whatever grew in that bog over thousands of years, and the smoke carries that place. This is what we call peat terroir, and it's the reason we smoke with more than one peat.

• Washington (Olympic Peninsula): approachable campfire and burning heather. Our most used peat.
• Islay, Scotland: bigger peat with a hint of the classic medicinal note.
• Sooke, Vancouver Island: our most local peat, strikingly herbal.
• Sugar kelp: local sugar kelp added to the peat fire for sweet smoke and a maritime, beach at low tide note.

The best way to understand it is to taste two of them side by side.

What is sugar kelp peated whisky?

Graeme grew up snacking on dulse and wanted to push the distillery's coastal character further. He took freshly harvested giant kelp and sugar kelp from a local seaweed harvester, built two small fires of Washington peat and laid raw kelp on each. Giant kelp gave a beach tangle note. Sugar kelp gave something unexpected, a sweet smoke. That was the one.

Now a small portion of some peating runs is done with sugar kelp on the fire. The sweetness and sea character carry through mashing, fermentation and distillation, and you can taste the kelp in the new make. Sugar kelp releases are limited. Join the free Terroir tier of Friends of Macaloney's to hear about the next one first.

Does peat fade as whisky ages?

Yes. Smoke is lost at every stage, including years in cask, so the peat you start with in the malt isn't what ends up in the bottle. That's why the starting peat level and the cask have to be chosen together: enough smoke to survive the journey, not so much that the whisky turns one dimensional.

Which casks work with peated whisky?

We haven't found a cask that fights peat. Each one pulls the smoke in a different direction.

• Ex bourbon: the cleanest view of our peated house style.
• Virgin American oak: adds its own wood phenols, which lift and complement the peat, as in Cathedral Grove.
• Wine casks (Oloroso, PX, Sauternes, Moscatel, Portuguese red wine and more): add sweetness and fruit alongside the smoke. Our Peat Project Moscatel Cask was named 2025 Canadian Whisky of the Year at the Canadian Whisky Awards.

Which peated whisky should a beginner try first?

Graeme's rule of thumb is to start with a lightly peated whisky from a wine or sherry cask, made with Washington peat for its approachable campfire smoke. Audit Failure, Double Down and Bang Sauce fit that, and River Pirate's Sauternes sweetness makes its 54 ppm easier than the number suggests.

Satyam doesn't always start people light: "I've introduced people who'd never had peated whisky to Harvest Coast and they loved it, even at 54 ppm. The Washington peat gives a softer barbecue smoke that a lot of people find approachable." Harvest Coast was named Canadian Single Malt Whisky of the Year at the 2026 Canadian Whisky Awards.

How should you drink peated whisky?

• Neat first, then add a few drops of water. Water softens the first hit of smoke and opens up the fruit, malt and cask notes underneath. Use still water that isn't heavily mineralised.
• Go easy on ice if you want to explore the whisky. Cold mutes the aroma.
• Peated Rob Roy: 1 oz peated whisky with ¼ oz Carpano Antica vermouth, about 80:20.
• Peated highball: peated whisky and chilled tonic at 1:1, with or without ice and a wedge of orange, lemon or lime.
• Penicillin: our bar serves it on Triple Take with a Bang Sauce float. River Pirate or Harvest Coast also work as the smoky float. Blood and Sand and Cameron's Kick are other classics that suit a peated whisky.
• Blend your own: mix one of our peated and unpeated whiskies from the same cask type in different ratios to find the peat level you like best.

What food goes with peated whisky?

• Fresh oysters, ideally Vancouver Island Kusshi. Sip the oyster liquor, then the whisky, or pour a little whisky into the shell.
• Smoked foods, but not hot and spicy ones. Chilli heat makes the whisky taste hot too.
• A cheese plate with crackers.
• Local charcuterie.
• Dried fruit and nuts.

Keep the food lighter than the whisky. If it's too strong it hides the layers in the glass.

Is peat harvesting sustainable?

Most harvested peat goes to garden centres and nurseries as peat moss and compost. Whisky uses very little by comparison. We use one to two bales of peat to smoke a 2 tonne batch of malted barley, which makes roughly 1,500 bottles of whisky.

What are the biggest myths about peated whisky?

• "All peated whisky is medicinal." No. Depending on the peat and the process it can be soft, sweet, earthy, coastal, barbecue or campfire.
• "Higher ppm is better." No. ppm tells you something about smoke level, nothing about quality.
• "The ppm on the label is what's in the bottle." No. It's measured on the malt, and much of it is lost before bottling.

Can I see peat smoking at the distillery?

Yes. Pete's Tour covers every stage from raw barley and peat smoke to the copper pot stills and the barrel room, with guided tastings. The distillery is at 761 Enterprise Crescent, Saanich, BC, open Wednesday to Sunday, 12 PM to 9 PM. See Visit Us for directions, or browse every peated whisky we have in stock.