| Whiskey,
simply put, is aged grain alcohol fermented from malt or
grain, distilled and aged in wooden barrels where it absorbs
the color and flavor of the barrels. |
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It's probably
the most confusing spirit for most people, so I hope this basic
information helps clear things up. If you wish to learn more then
there are entire books written on the subject.
| The four main countries that
produce whiskey/whisky are; Ireland, Scotland, America,
and Canada. America and Ireland spell
whiskey with an e and Scotland
and Canada spell whisky without the e.
The reason? No one has a good answer. (Know that a few other
countries produce whiskey like Japan, Wales, and Spain,
but not nearly as the volume as these four countries.) |
 |
• Ireland produces
Irish whiskey.
• Scotland produces blended Scotch whisky and single malt
whisky.
• Canada produces Canadian whisky and rye.
• America produces, bourbon, corn whiskey, rye, and Tennessee
whiskey.
You
should know that Scotland and Ireland still fight over who first
made whiskey to this day.
 |
Ireland |
| There
are only three distilleries in all of Ireland and Bushmills
has been there since 1608 making it the oldest distillery
in the world. They dry their grain with kilns. |
 |
 |
The
most Popular Irish whisky brands found behind American bars
are Jameson
and Bushmills.
|
Irish whiskey is mostly served neat, on the
rocks or with water or soda. Lemon twists are common garnish
too. The most popular recipe is an Irish Coffee.
Irish cream is used recipes like; B-52, Mudslide,
Nutty Irishman, Orgasm, and an Irish Car Bomb.
|
 |
•
Bailey's Irish Cream: The
brainchild of this beige Irish creamy liqueur made with imported
vanilla from Madagascar, cocoa from West Africa and cream from
Irish cows was David Dand. It was introduced
in 1974 and is ranked in the top ten of the best selling spirits
in the world. The company says that it took four years of research
to keep it from curdling and that a bottle will last two years
without refrigeration. Diageo now owns it.
| Irish Coffee: An
Irish airport bartender named Joe Sheridan
invented the Irish Coffee at Shannon Airport
in Dublin. Then in 1952 a San Francisco reporter named Stanton
Delaplane took the recipe back to Jack Koeppler
who owned the Buena
Vista Cafe. Today the bar claims to serve 2000 Irish Coffee’s
a day. Holy Java Batman! |
 |
 |
Scotland |
Scotch
whisky is known for it’s smoky flavor that comes from
drying the malted barley over peat fires.
Scotland
is divided into four geographical flavors; Lowlands,
Highlands, Speyside, and The Islands.
There
are two types of Scotch whisky and they are blended
Scotch whisky and single malt whisky.
|
 |
• Johnnie Walker... Was
a man from Kilmarnock, Scotland who first blended Scotches. At
age 15 in 1820 he took his deceased father’s life insurance
money and opened a little store. He sold sundries of sorts, tea,
and whisky. He began thinking about how the teas he sold were
blended, so he started blending whisky making Walker’s
Kilmarnock Whisky. It became very popular in his little
area, but exploded when his son, Alexander Walker,
dreamed up a tall square bottle and bottled it with the name Old
Highland Whisky in 1867. His son’s made more Scotch
whiskies and added the striding man image on the bottles. By 1920,
Johnnie Walker was on every bar’s back shelf. Today it comes
in Red, Black, Gold, Blue, Green, Pure Malt, and Swing. The Swing
bottle actually rocks/swings back and forth.
Single
Malt Refers to single malt Scotch whisky. It means that the whisky
is 100% malted barley from only one distillery.
The
most popular single malt Scotches are:
•
Glenlivit (glen-LIVE-it)
Produced since 1825.
•Glenmorangie
(glen-MORang-ee, rhymes with orangy) Produced since 1845.
•Glenfiddich
(gle-FID-ickkk) Produced since 1887 and means valley of the
deer.
• Laphroaig
(la-FROY-g)
• Oban (O-bin)
| Drambuie (dram-BOO-ee) A
heather honey and herbal Scotch whisky liqueur. produced in
Scotland by the Mackinnon family. The recipe was brought to
them by Prince Charles in gratitude of keeping him safe during
the Battle of the Culloden Moor. Drambuie comes from a Scottish
Gaelic term an dram buidheach that translates to the drink
that satisfies. |
 |
• Scotch is served neat, on the rocks, with water, or soda
water. Sometimes guests request a lemon or lemon twist. Every
once in a while you’ll get an order for a Scotch Sour.
• When an American hears a European accent as a guest orders
whiskey, they usually mean Scotch whisky so double check with
them.
| Blue Blazer: The
flaming drink that the Grandfather of bartending, Jerry Thomas,
created. The drink is like a hot toddy using warm blended
Scotch whisky, hot water, and honey. He would heat two mugs
and put the warm whisky in one and the water and honey into
the other then light the whisky and pour it into the other
mug. He then would constantly pour the mugs back into one
another creating a long blue flame. |
 |
 |
America |
America produces, bourbon, corn whiskey,
rye, blended whiskey, and Tennessee whiskey.
 |
Charred Oak Barrel A
Baptist minister named Elijah Craig was the first
to discover that whiskey aged in charred barrels changed the
flavor and color. His accident discovery started when he could
only afford used herring barrels, so to get the fish
smell out he would burn the inside of the barrel. Today, whiskey
factories have the barrels in assembly line fashion and the
insides are torched with a high hot flame that looks like
big cigar torch lighters. |
Bourbon
| Bourbon whiskey
that is made from a mash between 51%-79% corn and aged at
least two years in charred oak barrels. Anyone in America
can make bourbon and only Kentucky can put the words Kentucky
Bourbon on its label. |
 |
| The name Bourbon
comes from Bourbon County in Kentucky. In
the 1800's, they sent barrels of whiskey down the Mississippi
river to New Orleans (and other places) the barrels would
have the word Bourbon stamped on them. Soon
the words whiskey and bourbon became synonymous.
In 1964 the U.S. congress restricted
bourbon to U.S. production only and made it the official native
spirit of America. |
 |
There
is also Small Batch Bourbon and Single
Barrel Bourbon.
•
Small Batch Bourbon is bottlings from
a batch of barrels that have been mixed prior to the bottling.
Popular Small Batch Bourbons are:
Basil Hayden's, Knob Creek, Baker's, Booker's, and
Woodford Reserve.
|
 |
•
Single Barrel Bourbon is
a bottling of one single barrel of Bourbon. Popular brands
are: Elijah Craig, 18 years old, Blanton's, Elmer T. Lee, Henry
McKenna, and Evan William's Vintage.
NOTE:
Even though in America we spell whiskey
with the e, Kentucky spells
it WHISKY to show
honor in producing it the way Scotland does (which is
using cold winter wheat instead of the summer wheat).
American Rye Whiskey
By
law, rye whiskey is made from a mash of at least
51% rye. The other 49% is from corn, and malted barley.
|
 |
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The
most popular American rye is: Sazerac rye, Old Overholt,
Van Winkle, Rittenhouse,and the new Wild Turkey Rye. |
• Sazeracs are made with rye and also a classic
Manhattan is made with rye.
Tennessee Whiskey
Tennessee
whiskey
is made in uh...Tennessee. It goes through a process
called the Lincoln
County Process.
NOTE:
Sour mash just means
that some of the yeast mixture from one batch is used for another
batch. It’s the same when you make sour dough bread.
Jack Daniel’s
Whiskey Tennessee
sour mash whiskey that was invented by Jack
Daniel. He developed the taste of his
whiskey by taking sugar maple wood and burning it to a perfected
stage. After the wood is cooled the result is ground down and
packed into cisterns 10 feet high. The whiskey is then poured
on top and the time consuming process of white whiskey traveling
through the 10 feet of sugar maple charcoal begins. Drop by drop
it’s collected at the bottom at aged in new oak barrels
for a minimum of four years. No one knows what the No 7
means on the bottle.
 |
Jack Daniel Jasper Newton...
Jack
Daniel was born around the 1840’s or 1850’s.
No one really knows exactly when because he sort of slipped
through the cracks being the tenth of thirteen children and
his mother dying when he was a toddler. At nine years old
little Jack Daniel was taught how to make whiskey
from a Reverend’s slave named Nearest Green.
When he was thirteen years old the church folk came down on
the Reverend for making whiskey, so he sold the business to
Jack. At age 19 Jack discovered a cave filled with cool spring
water that fed sugar maple trees.
In 1865 the Civil War was over and the federal government
passed a law that distilleries had to pay taxes so Jack was
the first to register and remains the oldest registered distillery
in America. He built a distillery near the cave and sugar
maples and never married or had any children. His love was
whiskey. He died a slow death due to foot infection that led
to amputation then death in 1911. His nephew Lem Motlow
took over and due to early prohibition in Tennessee, Motlow
moved the distillery to Alabama, then St. Louis. In 1938,
he rebuilt the distillery in the original Cave Spring Hollow.
In 1956 it was sold to Brown-Forman. |
American
Blended Whiskey
Blended
whiskey
is just a blending of different whiskey and bourbon or rye
together. Seagram's 7 is the most
popular and there's also Beam Eight Star
and Kessler both made by Jim
Beam.
|
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Popular bourbon and
whiskey recipes include; Whiskey Sour, Lynchburg Lemonade,
Manhattan, John Collins, Old Fashioned, Mint Julep, and whiskey
highballs.
• Southern Comfort is classified as a liqueur. No, it
does not have a whiskey base to it. It’s made with peaches
and apricots.
• The Mint Julep is the most popular drink made with Bourbon.
It's the drink mascot of the Kentucky Derby.
 |
Canada |
Canada
blends many whiskies together
and call then blended whisky. By law, whisky in Canada must be
aged for at least three years. Most people think of rye whisky
when they think of Canada. Often, a guest from Canada will ask
an American bartender for a rye and coke or a rye and ginger.
•
Canadian Club Canadian blended whisky produced by Hiram Walker
in Ontario since the late 1800’s. It’s nickname is
CC.
• Canadian Mist Canadian blended whisky often used in America
as a well whisky.
•
Crown Royal Canadian whisky made by Seagram’s especially
for Queen Elizabeth’s visit in 1939.
•
Yukon Jack Canadian honey whisky liqueur.
Misc.
Bourbon/Whiskey Stuff
Bourbon/Whiskey
Books
