WATCH: From barley to whisky at Farm Ness near Loch Ness

Farm Ness grows just over 200 acres of malted barley that then gets transformed into whisky, with some of it even going to Glenmorangie.

However, while whisky is a part of Scottish culture, it can be incredibly challenging to produce in the Highlands as the malted barley, which creates the spirited drink we all know and love, is highly weather dependent.

Donald Fraser, who runs and owns Farm Ness, is the fourth generation of farmers in his family and spends his days perfecting the farm’s barley crop in order to make delicious whisky.

He said: “One tonne of malted barley produces 400 to 500 litres of spirit, but that’s at 60-70 per cent, so you would roughly get around 600 to 700 bottles of whisky.”

When talking about reaching those margins, Donald said: “The weather is the biggest factor in it. It’s been too wet and too cold this year, so some of the barley is really struggling.

“It’s all about the growing season. You’ve just got to do the best seed bed you can, try to control weeds and a lot of finger crossing in the hope you’ll get a good result.

“We want as clean a crop as possible, so if we have a lot of weeds then they take a lot of the nutrients away from the barley because they are competing for what’s in the soil that helps grow barley.”

However, once the spirit has been taken out of the barley the farm is left with something called draft. Those ‘leftovers’ can then be used as food for the farm’s livestock.

Donald said: “It’s like a full cycle. The grain leaves the farm, and then we get this amazing product, whiskey, which is sold all round the world and makes a lot of money. But then we get the byproduct back and feed it to the animals.”