| 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. |
 |
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.
|
 |
 |
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
