Cheers to All Malt Men!
The term 'monkey shoulder' harks back to our whisky making heritage. It’s a reference to a condition that maltmen sometimes picked up while working long shifts, turning the barley by hand. It had a tendency to cause their arm to hang down a bit like a monkey’s, so they nicknamed it 'monkey shoulder'.
Whilst our maltmen are among the few who still turn the barley manually, working conditions have changed which means this injury has been consigned to the past.
Today, the name Monkey Shoulder lives on as an affectionate tribute, to honour the hard graft of all the maltmen past and present. Cheers!