Original subtitles

GREGG WALLACE: From amaretto to sambuca,

we drink an astonishing 40 million

liters of liqueurs every year.

Whether you prefer them neat or on the rocks--

- -or in a classy cocktail--

- -we shell out over 1 and 1/2 billion pounds a year on them.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Whether citrusy, nutty,

or fruity, liqueurs are simply sweetened

and flavored alcoholic drinks.

To find out how they're made, we've come to Ireland--

- -to the country's largest liqueur factory.

How is it doing that?

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: I'm Gregg Wallace.

That's too fast. I can't even see what it's doing.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: And I'll be finding

out how they put the flavor--

Oh, that's a heady mix, innit?

- GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: - -into this creamy concoction.

You're almost making a dessert.

All right.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: I'm Cherry Healey.

And I'll be digesting the science

behind these popular drinks.

Some of them have got pizza sandwiches.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: And historian Ruth Goodman--

I feel a burn of pepper.

- GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: - -discovers

how liqueurs were once thought to be the cure for all ills.

No matter what was wrong with you--

stubbed toe, dandruff-- have a glass of this.

Over the next 24 hours, this factory

will produce an astonishing 540,000 bottles of liqueur.

Welcome to "Inside the Factory."

[theme music]

This is the Baileys factory in Dublin, Ireland.

150 people work here, knocking out their liqueurs.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: They make different flavors,

from salted caramel to strawberries and cream.

But tonight we're following production

of their original Irish Cream in 700 milliliters bottles.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: A blend of alcohol and cream,

sweetened with chocolate and vanilla,

it all begins with a base spirit, Irish whiskey.

To get hold of some, I'm heading 55 miles up the road to one

of Ireland's biggest distilleries,

the Great Northern Distillery.

It churns out more than 19 million liters each year.

I'm heading to the intake area, where production starts

with a delivery of grain.

Guiding the lorry in is distillery manager Brian Watts.

- Good morning, Brian. - Good morning, Gregg.

Good morning.

Why have you got a jar of stuff in your hands?

I've got a jar of maize, because we're

making a grain whiskey.

How much maize is on that truck.

BRIAN WATTS: There's 30 tons in that truck.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Otherwise known as corn,

the maize is dried to stop it going off.

BRIAN WATTS: It gives a sweet, light, buttery type of spirit

that goes well in a cream liqueur.

You're not actually Irish, are you?

No. I'm from past Ireland, Scotland.

How did a Scotsman end up making Irish whiskey, please?

Well, the Scots and Irish have a long history

going back of making spirits.

So 30 tons on there.

And how often does one of those trucks full of maize come in?

I'll be putting it in about nine a week to keep us going.

Well, we can't hang about then. We better unload it.

Let's go then. Let's get going.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: I'm not sure why I'm hurrying.

Because turning this lot into whiskey will take a while.

- Right. - Ready?

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: As I set the maize free,

the clock starts on our longest ever production timeline.

There's enough maize on this lorry

to produce 30,000 liters of whiskey.

What's the basic principle of turning this into whiskey?

BRIAN WATTS: This is just starch inside a packet.

We've got to break it open.

And then we have to break that starch down in sugars.

Yeast will then eat the sugar to produce alcohol.

But, first of all, we've got to get the starch out.

We've got to expose the starch.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: And that is no walk in the park.

Our maize faces an extreme assault course

before it can become whiskey.

First it drops through a grate in the floor.

Then it rattles through a series of sieves, which

remove any husks and stones.

The clean golden kernels shuffle on

to the hammer mill, where they face

their biggest challenge yet.

BRIAN WATTS: This is where we break down the corns of maize

and make it into a very fine corn flour.

GREGG WALLACE: Tell me how this works.

Well, let's have a little look.

The maize is fed down through these pipes,

and it lands right in the path of these flails.

These will spin round and smash the maize corns

- as they come around. - Wow.

And it's going at such a speed that it's

forcing the crushed up maize against the side.

And out the other side comes our maize flour or our corn flour.

Yes.

The finer you mill it, the easier it is to bust

open the starch granules.

Right. Well, we better get this started then, haven't we?

Let's get it going then.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Every hour, 3.7 tons of maize drops

into the path of 200 flails.

They spin against it at 1,500 revs per minute,

smashing it into corn flour.

Now known as grist, it rushes along

pipes and drops down into the still's masher

for its next workout.

Here it's mixed with water to create

a thick liquid called mash.

This is what's come out of the still's masher.

- Can I taste it? - You can, indeed.

God, that is really acidic.

Mate, if they're drinking that, they're

not gonna be very happy. What's gonna happen to it next?

What we're going to do with that is we're

putting it into the steep tank.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: In this 6,500 liter tank,

the mash faces another ordeal as it's

heated to 75 degrees Celsius.

As the temperature increases, the starch granules

swell up like tiny balloons.

Then they're blasted with jets of superheated steam,

which explode them, finally releasing that valuable starch.

So all of these processes-- all this heat,

all these tanks-- that's just to get the starch.

You haven't even turned the starch the sugar yet.

We are nowhere near what we drink.

Nowhere near it.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: It's taken three hours to release

the starch from the maize.

But now another transformation is required.

Our cooked mash is cooled to 64 degrees

and pumped into another still tank, where an ingredient

containing natural enzymes is added to break

that starch down into sugars.

The enzymes come from milled barley.

Barley? I thought it was all maize.

No, up to 10% of the recipe comes from malted barley.

Why don't you add the barley right at the start?

You would kill the enzymes by adding it

and too early in the process.

You have to cool everything down and then add the malted barley.

It makes you wonder why people from years ago bothered,

doesn't it?

Well, I think the end results have left the boiler.

Yeah, you would.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: The enzymes make quick work of

the starch, turning it into sugars in just 90 minutes.

The resulting liquid is now known as sweet wort,

and is pumped into one of the distillery's 126,000-liter

fermentation vessels before it embarks

on the next stage of this complex production process.

As I'm discovering, making whisky

is a complicated business.

And ordering it's no easier, as Cherry's discovering.

[jazz music]

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Single malt,

blended, aged 12 years, triple distilled,

cask strength, Irish, Scotch--

When it comes to whisky, it can be really

hard to know what to order.

What is the difference between a single malt,

a blended, and a bourbon?

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: To find out--

- Hi, Jaega. Lovely to see you. - Hey, Cherry.

- CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: - -I've invited drinks expert

Jaega Wise to pull up a stool with me at the bar.

Behold a dazzling array of whiskies.

JAEGA WISE: Yes.

How on Earth do you tell the difference between them?

Well, it can be quite complicated.

Even the type of grain that's used, whereabouts it's made,

the type of cask--

all of these differences will determine

a difference in flavor, and ultimately a different whisky.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Well, let's get this lesson started.

First up--

CHERRY HEALEY: What makes a single malt a single malt?

JAEGA WISE: OK. Well, the single part of a single malt

means it comes from a single distillery.

And the malt means it has to be made with 100% malted barley,

which looks like that.

- Is there leeway with that? - No, not at all.

And there are actually strict laws that govern this.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Next, bourbon.

JAEGA WISE: Bourbon is a type of American whiskey,

traditionally associated with the state of Kentucky.

What is the main characteristic of a bourbon?

What makes a bourbon a bourbon is it

has to be made with at least 51% maize or corn.

How specific, 51%.

51%.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Just like the Irish whiskey that's

going into our liqueur, bourbon's taste

is influenced by the subtle buttery flavors of maize.

So you're probably thinking, what's the other 49%.

Well, it can be a whole myriad of other grains.

It can be barley, it can be wheat,

or it could just be more corn.

Whiskey makers are very strict, very specific.

People take their whiskey very, very seriously.

[music playing]

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: But the grain is just the start.

Oh, wow. Look at this.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: How the alcohol

is distilled is also crucial.

This looks like a kind of cartoon character

from a children's animation.

JAEGA WISE: This is called a pot still, which is made of copper.

And copper helps to strip the impurities from the whiskey.

The higher the surface area of copper to whisky,

the more impurities are removed.

So if the still is taller then there's

a higher surface area, which means you have a more

lighter, more delicate whiskey.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: So the type of still can have as

big an impact on taste as the type of grain.

But whiskey makers have even more ways

to play around with flavor.

So we've tried a single malt. We've tried a bourbon.

So this here is a blended whiskey.

OK. Let's give it a go.

Do people say the word earthy?

- Yeah. Yeah, it's quite earthy. - OK.

What is the word blended mean in this context?

A blended whiskey can mean a mix of whiskeys

from multiple different distilleries.

You would tend to blend whiskey to get a flavor profile

you particularly wanted.

In the way that a painter might use different colors

- to get a very specific color. - JAEGA WISE: Yeah, exactly.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Despite their complex

differences, there is one simple thing

all whiskeys have in common.

They must be aged in oak casks.

These casks are often second hand,

and have had a previous life maturing other drinks like

sherry, port, and even wine.

One of the things that I've noticed

is there seems to be a real emphasis

on where the whiskey is made--

Scotland, Ireland, Japan, America.

Does that actually make a difference to the taste?

It makes a huge difference, and that's

largely because they all have different whiskey

making traditions.

And they all have different geography, as well.

So things like the type of water will

have a massive difference on the flavor of the finished product.

So if you are a whisky aficionado,

you are going to notice the difference between a Japanese

and a Scottish whisky.

- Yeah, absolutely. - I might not.

- Give it time. - CHERRY HEALEY: OK.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Back at the distillery,

it's less a question of which whiskey

than where's the whiskey.

Three hours and 45 minutes after our maize

arrived, it's still a long way from being an alcoholic spirit.

Our 125,000 liters of non alcoholic wort

are about to be introduced to the ingredient that

will perform that transformation-- yeast.

Can I help?

You can certainly help, if you want

- to jump up in the platform. - Certainly.

OK. So I know we've got our sugary liquid. Right?

What does the yeast do to our sugary wort?

Yeast are living mechanism,

and this will work on the sugars.

And it will convert that sugar into alcohol.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: We dissolve 200 kilograms of yeast

in 2,000 liters of water, creating a gloopy mix.

GREGG WALLACE: Are all sacks the same yeast?

Nope.

There are four different strains that go into our fermentation.

One will be a fast starter.

One will finish the whole process.

And two in the middle will give me the flavor

compounds that I'm looking for.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: 1,000 liters of this powerful yeast

mix join 125,000 liters of sweet wort

inside one of our fermentation tanks.

The yeast feeds on the sugars,

slowly converting them into alcohol.

And--

three days later, we have a boozy liquid called wash.

But there's a problem.

The wash isn't boozy enough.

At just 10% alcohol by volume, it's

not even as strong as wine, and falls well short of

the requirements for whiskey.

That problem is solved in distillation.

Wow.

Now, they look beautiful.

Welcome to my still hall.

GREGG WALLACE: What's happening in here?

BRIAN WATTS: What we're doing here

is taking out 10% alcohol from the fermentation process,

and we will purify that up to 94.6% alcohol,

take away all the water, all the impurities,

and give us the spirit that will eventually

become Irish whiskey.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: This process

relies on the different boiling points of alcohol and water.

Our wash is pumped into a distillation column

and heated to 85 degrees Celsius.

This is enough to boil the alcohol

and turn it into a vapor, but isn't

hot enough to boil the water.

The steamy booze we're after rises to the top of the

still, where it's pumped out and cooled back to a liquid,

while the unwanted water is sucked out

through a pipe at the bottom.

Basically, adding heat and the alcohol

is being caught as evaporation in the top.

That's essentially what distilling is.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: The wash cycles

through three distillation columns, which

successively increase the alcohol content

and remove impurities.

What happens if you only distilled it once?

It would be a bit rough.

It would be harsher spirit.

So why not do it six or seven times?

You would end up with no flavor, just alcohol.

We want flavor.

GREGG WALLACE: So in three distils,

you'll go from 10% alcohol to 94% alcohol.

The volume of liquid must have reduced down.

Dramatically, yes.

We're feeding it 15,000 liters an hour,

and we all have around about 1 and 1/2 thousand liters

of alcohol an hour coming off the still.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: And before it's allowed

to travel on to the next stage of production,

it has to be sampled.

Sounds like a job for me.

Well, this is where the spirit comes off the still.

This is the 94.6% alcohol.

Ah!

Sorry. I got too close.

Wow!

That's like getting a whiff of a really strong paint stripper.

It is. Too strong to drink.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: We dilute the spirit

down to 40% alcohol with water, to preserve

my precious taste buds.

But that's not whiskey color, is it?

No. This is whiskey spirit.

Ooh.

That's better. It's getting almost toasty now.

- Can I? - BRIAN WATTS: You can.

It's got a sweet start, but it ends in heat.

It's not unlike a grappa.

BRIAN WATTS: Very, very similar.

And you can hopefully get the buttery notes

coming through there.

That's a characteristic of the maize.

OK. And has that now passed your test?

That has passed my test. Yes.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: This clear whiskey

spirit might not look or taste much like whiskey yet.

But Brian assures me that it's nothing some time

and carefully chosen wood work won't sort0 out a little later.

The whiskey spirit we have produced

is diluted with water down to 68.5% alcohol,

and piped over from distillation to casking.

Now, these are attractive.

What wood is this?

This is American oak.

Why do you have to keep

the whiskey spirit in a wood barrel?

The wood will give color

and will contribute about 55% of the final flavor.

- No way. - Yeah.

Over half the flavor comes from the wood?

Well, that's a bit subjective, but yeah.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: But it's not just the wood

itself adding that flavor.

The barrels have previously been used to age American bourbon,

which helps add caramel and vanilla flavors,

and create a golden colored whiskey.

How do you get the spirit in here, with a big funnel?

Very nearly.

No.

[chuckles] Really?

That's a fuel pump. Right?

It's a pump. It can be used for fuel.

- We use it-- - Mate.

Mate, listen. Anybody watching this

will identify this as what they fill the car up with.

Have you got a meter?

The meter is here in the wall.

- OK. - The meter is here.

If I do this six times, do I get a free Teddy

- or a set of gardening gloves? - You could try.

- Right. - Try it.

- Yeah. Ready? - Go for it.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: It takes just 15 minutes

to fill each 200-liter barrel.

But it'll be a long time before the whiskey is ready to go

into our cream liqueur.

How long will our whiskey stay in here?

A minimum of three years.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Our whiskey spirit

will sit in a warehouse, slowly maturing

for the next 1,095 days.

Only then will it be grown up enough

to be called Irish whiskey.

Thankfully, Brian planned ahead and has a barrel he prepared

earlier for me to taste.

Yeah. Come on then.

The wood's added the color to the spirit.

- Yeah. It's made it golden. - BRIAN WATTS: Yep.

That's its natural color after three years.

Ooh.

Cheers.

Oh, that's deeper, richer. That's-- that's more open.

That's definitely sweet, very mellow.

You know what you're talking about, you. Do you?

Thank you. Yeah.

Listen, I've got a cream liqueur to make.

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

- OK. - Not too much of that.

[chuckles]

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: After three years, three days,

and five hours of production, Brian's matured batch

of whiskey is ready to become liqueur.

So I follow 24,000 liters of it

south to the liqueur factory.

At intake the tanker's hooked up and the whiskey's pumped out.

But it's not the only ingredient Darren

Keagen is seeing in today.

- Darren. - Hi, Gregg.

- That's our whisky. Right? - That's our whisky.

- What is that? - DARREN KEAGEN: That's cream.

- GREGG WALLACE: Fabulous. Of course.

It's a whiskey cream liqueur. Right?

DARREN KEAGEN: Absolutely. Yeah.

How much cream on that truck?

DARREN KEAGEN: 28,000 liters of cream on the tanker.

That will make 100,000 liters of liqueur, which in turn will

make 140,000 standard bottles.

Roughly what percentage of the drink is cream?

- 25%. - No wonder I like it.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: With two of these deliveries a day,

it's no surprise that 3% of all milk farmed in Ireland

goes into producing the cream for this factory.

But before it's clear to head inside,

there's one vital check we need to carry out.

[triumphant music]

[laughs] It's like "Star Trek."

You know, I have seen many lorries emptied before.

I've never been on the top of one. Go on.

OK, let's go.

What are you sampling for?

So we're sampling the temperature of the cream,

to make sure that it's 49 degrees.

Because any more than that

and it's starting to go off. Right?

DARREN KEAGAN: It's starting to go off. Yes.

So as you can see there, Gregg, we're at 6.2 degrees.

GREGG WALLACE: Perfect.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: The next ingredient

is one I've never heard of.

Darren, what's all these big sacks of casein?

DARREN KEAGAN: This is casein powder,

which is a milk protein.

GREGG WALLACE: It comes from milk.

DARREN KEAGAN: It comes from milk.

But during the cream and milk separation process,

we lose the casein.

You lose it when you take the cream off?

Absolutely, yeah.

And you have to put it back in again.

We have to put it back in because adds to its shelf life.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: All we need to do now is

get that casein into our cream.

We're gonna lift it up using this device.

If you would like to do the honors, Gregg.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Lucky for Darren,

I'm a dab hand with a hoist.

Whoa. Did I go the wrong way?

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: OK, maybe not.

Oh, I got it upside down. [laughs] Sorry.

- Not a great start, was it? - No. No.

Up she goes.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Each 1-ton bag

provides enough casein for 57,000 bottles of liqueur.

- Whoa! - Very good.

- That's a big ol' weight. - Perfect.

I couldn't have done it better myself.

So what we now need to do is open the bag.

Gregg, if you want to pull that--

Whoa.

As I'm loosening the knot, so you can just feel

the pressure of it coming down.

- Whoa! - DARREN KEAGAN: That's it.

Is that actually now coming out?

You can feel it moving there. You can see it traveling.

I can feel it kicking.

[upbeat music]

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: From here the casein

is mixed with cream, creating what they call the cream blend.

It's the key ingredient that will

transform our whiskey from neat spirit to smooth liqueur--

something that's often drunk before or after a meal,

as either a digestive or an aperitif.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Often, when out for a nice meal,

we offered an aperitif to get us in the mood for food.

Thank you.

It's meant to stimulate our appetite.

But whichever one of these liqueurs that we choose,

do they really get us ready to eat?

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: To check out the science

behind these drinks--

- Hi, Sam. Lovely to meet you. - Hi. Nice to meet you, too.

- CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: - -I've invited biopsychologist

Dr. Sam Caton to join me.

CHERRY HEALEY: Thank you Why do we

drink aperitifs before a meal?

Traditionally, aperitifs are quite light,

and quite often quite bitter as well.

The bitter taste stimulates saliva,

and they're said to prepare the taste buds and the stomach

for up and coming food.

What is it that's in the aperitifs that

give us that extra appetite?

Well, actually, it's probably just the alcohol.

In the laboratory, we've simply offered beer or wine,

and we've still seen this stimulation of appetite.

Is there a way that we can test your theory out?

Yes.

And it involves a rugby team, some beer, and lots of pizza.

I'm ready.

[upbeat music]

Hello. Welcome. Team A, over here.

Team B, you're all over here.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: We split the lads into two teams.

All right, Sam, what's the plan?

SAMANTHA CATON: Team A will be given

two pints each of normal lager.

Team B will be given two pints each of alcohol-free lager.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Our rugby boys

think they're here to test the effects of alcohol

on their decision making skills by completing

some mental exercises.

Now it's time to serve the beer.

Here we go.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Alcoholic for team A,

non-alcoholic for team B.

OK, guys, you've got your beers now

and you're more than welcome to start drinking.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Both groups think they're

drinking alcoholic beer.

OK. So they finished their beer. What happens next?

We're gonna give them pizza.

And, in theory, team A that are having the alcohol

should eat way more.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Each team is allowed

to eat as much as they want.

But what they don't know is that this is the real experiment.

Some of them have got pizza sandwiches.

They've layered them.

I think team A are eating a little bit more.

But they have had the alcohol.

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: After 30 minutes,

we take everything that's uneaten and weigh

the scraps to work out exactly how

much each team has wolfed down.

Finally, it's time to come clean.

I'm afraid to say we actually lied to you.

We actually wanted to see the effect of the alcohol

not on your cognitive function, but on how much you ate.

[groans, laughter]

So team A, you were the ones that consumed alcohol.

And you consumed 8% more pizza compared to team B.

[laughter, applause]

Group B, you had alcohol-free lager.

[laughter]

CHERRY HEALEY [VOICEOVER]: Taking into account

the alcohol consumed, that's roughly

320 calories more per person.

Why does alcohol make you eat more?

One line of thinking is that alcohol promotes food intake

via stimulating hormones that make us feel hungrier,

or dampening down those that make us feel full.

It could be that it makes the food tastier.

It could be a loss of inhibitions,

and therefore the diet simply goes out of the window.

I definitely know that feeling.

If you want to avoid overeating,

then it may be a good idea to avoid the alcohol as well.

So there's nothing magical in an aperitif.

It's just the alcohol.

Yeah, that's right. It's just the alcohol.

[upbeat music]

CHERRY HEALEY: So it turns out that the person

who came up with the idea of aperitifs

really was onto something.

And we have the science to back it up.

They really do put you in the mood for food.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: In Dublin,

our cream blend is sorted.

But I'm going in search of our whiskey,

which has been pumped to the production area and is waiting

in a 15,000-liter mix tank.

Meeting me at the top of it is Eamonn Oxley.

- Hi, Gregg. - Eamonn.

- Right. What are we doing here? - OK.

Firstly, we're gonna make a flavor mix.

So we're gonna blend our Irish whiskey with extracts

from cocoa and vanilla, and we're

going to blend in some caramel.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Natural flavorings

are pumped in, beginning the transformation of our whisky

to a rich, flavorsome liqueur.

Boy, that's a heady mix, innit?

You're almost making a dessert.

EAMONN OXLEY: Yeah.

Cream vanilla, cocoa, caramel--

why did you add the caramel? Does that give it the sweetness?

It gives it a little bit of flavor,

but it also balances the color.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Cocoa and vanilla

are both natural products, so they vary in color from season

to season.

By subtly altering the amount of added caramel,

they keep the color of the finished drink consistent.

How many bottles will that result in?

You can make up to half a million bottles.

And how often do you make a batch like that?

EAMONN OXLEY: Every day or so.

[upbeat music]

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Our whiskey flavor mix is pumped

out of the tank and into this high security room,

where sugar and water are fed in

along with another surprising ingredient.

- What's in there? - OK.

So we take our flavor mix that we've just made,

and we blend it together with neutral spirit.

You've already got a spirit.

- You've got whiskey. - Yes.

Well, we add a little bit more, which has got a neutral taste.

We don't want to overpower the flavor with whiskey.

So we put it in the neutral spirit, which

brings up that alcohol content without affecting

the flavor balance.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: The neutral spirit

is made in a very similar way to our Irish whiskey,

but is left an eye watering 97% alcohol by volume.

GREGG WALLACE: Can we go in there?

No, we can't.

There may be a explosive atmosphere in there

due to the high strength spirit that we use.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Three years, three days,

and nine hours into production, our cream

and whiskey blends are almost ready to combine and form

our liqueur.

Liqueurs are such a simple concept--

booze, sugar, and flavorings.

But who thought of bagging those ingredients

together in the first place?

Ruth is investigating.

RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: I've come

to the 14th century ruins of Mount Grace Priory

in Yorkshire--

Jane, how lovely to see you again.

- RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: - -to find out more

from drinks expert Jane Payton.

So why are we here then?

We're here in a former monastery

because the development of liqueurs

around 800 years ago was very much driven by monks.

Originally, they were medicinal drinks with medicinal herbs,

and spices, fruits with an alcoholic base.

RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: The secrets

of distilling alcohol are believed to have

been brought to Europe by Spanish scholar

Arnaldus de Villa Nova.

Arnaldus was an alchemist.

And he was looking for the elixir

of immortality, which he thought he might

find through distillation.

So he started practicing it himself.

RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: To boost their health

giving properties and mask the often

foul taste of his concoctions, he infused

them with herbs and spices.

Soon he was convinced he had found the elixir of life,

and he referred to his liqueurs as aqua vitae, water of life.

It really was considered to be a magical potion.

You could drink it for anything and it would help you.

No matter what was wrong with you-- stubbed toe--

[laughter]

- -dandruff-- have a glass of this.

[lively music]

RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: Monks and religious scholars expanded

on Villa Nova's work and created their own recipes,

including this one from the 14th century

for Aqua Vitae Perfectissima.

JANE PAYTON: We've got a selection of herbs and spices.

This is sage, and this would have been used to rid the body

of venom and pestilence.

- Oh. [laughs] - JANE PAYTON: Very important.

We have cloves and cinnamon.

They'd be very good at getting rid of phlegm.

- RUTH GOODMAN: OK. - We have ginger and fennel.

Now, they'd be very good for digestion.

RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: We're infusing our herbs and spices

into a base spirit of brandy.

JANE PAYTON: It looks a little bit like pond life, doesn't it?

RUTH GOODMAN: It does at the moment, doesn't it?

Why are they putting them in alcohol?

The thing about alcohol is that herbs and spices

dissolve into the alcohol.

So the active ingredient will be there in the alcohol

in a way it wouldn't be if it was water-based.

RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: After heating, we pour our concoction

into a jar to infuse.

RUTH GOODMAN: Boy, look at that sludge.

- Sludgy. - [laughs]

That's where all the goodness is.

RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: Seven days later,

it's ready to cure all ills.

That's powerful.

Very spicy hot, isn't it?

[laughs] I could feel a burn of pepper.

I really feel the burn, as well.

But I already feel more vigorous, actually.

- RUTH GOODMAN: Do you? - I do.

And this, then, really is the beginning of liqueur?

You could say this is the mother of liqueurs.

[music playing]

RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: The popularization of aqua vitae

around Europe in the 16th century paved the way

for a boom in liqueur making.

Distillers started making them.

Apothecaries started making them.

And suddenly they had a commercial value.

RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: The drinks got sweeter,

and their recipes even found their way into the most

popular books of the day.

It has a wonderful title, "Delightes For Ladies," which

includes tips for your home.

So liqueurs were included in that.

So suddenly they've gone from being medicine--

which is fairly prosaic--

to something that was a real treat, and something to savor.

RUTH GOODMAN [VOICEOVER]: In the 18th and 19th centuries,

the popularity of liqueurs increased dramatically.

Many makers experimented with their own flavors,

creating some of the well-known brands we still see today.

But what of the monks who first popularized them?

Even today, two of the best known liqueurs--

- Chartreuse and Benedictine-- - Oh, of course.

- -are connected with monks and monasteries.

Going back all those 800 years, we still

have that religious connection in the monks.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Back at the factory,

we've got 3,600 liters

of non-alcoholic smooth cream blend,

and 3,900 liters of flavored alcoholic whisky mix.

And it's time to introduce these very different

liquids to each other.

The venue for their first day is the 7

and 1/2 thousand liter tank.

Let's see how this liquid liaison is going.

Well, it smells like a glass of whiskey

and looks like a cafe latte.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: To me,

the two liquids appear to be getting on swimmingly.

Is that it, now?

Are we ready to bottle this?

Not quite.

If we bottle the liquid at this stage,

the product would separate in the bottle

in a number of hours.

I have an example here.

The cream has risen to the top, and your flavors,

your whiskey have stayed at the bottom.

So how do you stop that happening?

We put it through a process of homogenization.

I've heard of that, but I'm not sure what that is.

Come with me, and I'll show you how it works.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: In need of some quick relationship

counseling, our cream liqueur is pumped down to the homogenizer.

So explain to me this process of homogenization.

Ok. This is the homogenizer valve.

So the liquid is pumped with very high pressure

through this valve, and through a very, very small

gap, less than 0.1 millimeter.

And that reduces the cream droplet size

from about 5 microns to 0.3 of a micron, so around 300 times

smaller than the width of a human hair.

- Wow. - Yeah.

So squeezing the liquid through such a small hole

- stops it splitting. - Yes.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Smashing these droplets

decreases their size and buoyancy, meaning

they can't rise to the top.

And as they pass through the valve,

they're coated in a crucial ingredient--

the casein in powder I added earlier.

This stops them clumping back together.

Smaller casein-coated droplets mean our liqueur won't split.

GREGG WALLACE: That's it, isn't it?

That's the cream liqueur. That's done.

This is the finished cream liqueur.

GREGG WALLACE: That's the stuff that's going in the bottles

- that go to the shops. - EAMONN OXLEY: It is.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: But before it's allowed anywhere

near a bottle, we need to check the relationship is rock solid.

If that's not right, that doesn't go out.

No. We can't bottle it.

That's a lot of liquid to throw away, mate.

It is.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: The only way

to tell for sure is to stick it under the microscope.

Yeah. You sit down, Eammon. Don't worry about me.

Thank you.

Firstly, we want to look at our sample from the homogenizer. OK.

Well, what are you expecting to see?

Hopefully, not very much.

This is 400 times magnification, and you can see the liquid

flowing across the lens.

There's nothing.

EAMONN OXLEY: The cream droplets have been reduced to a very

fine size, so you actually can't see them

under 400 times magnification.

So what would it look like if it wasn't right?

I have a sample here.

So it'd be rather more to see on this picture.

Oh, wow.

That looks like little islands in a fast flowing stream.

- It is. - That's very different.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: In this sample,

the fat particles are keeping to themselves.

The relationship is doomed.

Those clumps would join together

and then they would separate from the liquid.

Yes.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Whereas our homogenized batch

is happily cohabiting.

Does that mean that our batch has got the all clear?

Yep. It's good to bottle.

My Auntie Hazel can I have her drop at Christmas.

She can indeed. Yeah.

Aemonn, thank you for your time.

Thank you very much, Gregg.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Test, passed.

Our cream liqueur is destined to stay together forever--

or at least until the best before date.

7,500 liters skip merrily to the bottling line.

Overseeing the process is line manager Keira Cleary

- Keira. - How are you?

- Very good. - KEIRA CLOWERY: Great.

GREGG WALLACE: I want you to teach me about bottling.

Why are they dark?

Because you make it a cream liqueur,

which isn't unattractive, but you can't

see it with a dark bottle.

KEIRA CLOWERY: The reason for that

is that UV light can actually damage

- the cream liqueur inside. - Ah.

So by using the dark bottle, we protect the cream liqueur

and prolong the shelf life.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Our factor 50 bottles trundle

into a depalletizer, which bunches each layer firmly

together using a hydraulic press,

then slides them 176 at a time onto a conveyor belt.

The inside of each one is blasted with a jet of sterile

air, which ensures they're perfectly clean

and they're ready to meet our cream liqueur.

What's happening?

So this is where we fill the bottle.

GREGG WALLACE: That's it? All those processes,

all that testing, the all clear that is now going in a bottle.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Our liqueur

is pumped along pipes in the ceiling

at a rate of 9,000 liters an hour,

and into the top of the filler.

Each bottle is lifted up by a piston in the rotating

carousel, and forced against the filler heads which pump

700 milliliters into every one.

GREGG WALLACE: So, at any one time, how many bottles

are actually being filled?

KIRA CLOWERY: The line runs at 250 bottles a minute.

But each bottle is being filled in about 3 and 1/2 seconds.

But how does it do it?

It can't just pour it in because it would-- at that speed,

- it would bounce back up again. - You're absolutely right.

We have a specially designed nozzle.

It fills in a really special way.

The liquid flows along the top of the bottle,

along the inside, and then fills from the bottom up.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: It takes just 40 minutes

to pump our 7 and 1/2 thousand liter batch of liqueur

into 10,714 bottles.

Then it's on to the capper.

KIRA CLOWERY: So we've got eight capping heads.

Each of those is capping 30 bottles a minute.

- How is it doing that? - That's too fast.

I can't even see what it's doing.

So the aluminum caps are coming down the chute.

And it goes all the way onto the bottle under the capping head.

If you look at the bottle, it already has the thread

in the bottle itself.

So when the cap is placed on top, the pressure of the capper

actually presses the top into those recesses.

And that's how you get your thread going.

Gotcha. So the machine is basically molding the cap

to the shape of the bottle.

Absolutely.

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: Precious cargo sealed inside,

labels are applied to the front, back, and neck of each bottle.

More than three years, three days,

and 10 hours after production began, our bottles

of cream liqueur are packed into cases of 12,

stacked onto pallets, and taken to the distribution area.

In charge is dispatch manager Dennis Minihan.

- Hello, Dennis. - Hi, Gregg.

- Good to meet you. - You too.

Right.

I love you guys because you

have all the crazy facts and figures.

Yeah.

Tell me how much is on there. How many pallets?

DENNIS MINIHAN: There's 23 pallets

going into that container, Gregg, 45 cases per pallet--

- [laughs] - --which is 1,485 cases--

Right.

- -with 12 by 700 bottles per case, which is 17,820 bottles.

Well, I knew you'd know it. I absolutely knew you did.

I'm guessing Christmas sales are the bigger sales.

Am I right?

DENNIS MINIHAN: Well, the plant here is busy all year round.

But the lead up to Christmas will be

the busiest time of the year.

[upbeat music]

GREGG WALLACE [VOICEOVER]: 12 lorry loads of cream

liqueur leave here every day.

With bottles heading all over the world,

Americans are the biggest drinkers getting

through 13 million liters a year, followed by us

Brits, then the Germans.

Well, making a cream liqueur is a lot more complicated

than I first thought.

And two things really surprised me.

One is we don't make whiskey, we just make spirit.

It's the barrel that turns it into whiskey.

And cream and alcohol do not mix.

It takes a great deal of know how

and a fair amount of science to make them happily blend--

a bit like me and Cherry.

[theme music]