Yes, just in time for St. Patrick's Day, a post that has nothing to do with
beer!
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| Wait... what? |
I love whiskey. Which is why it pains me to hear (as I often do) people say something along the lines of, “I just don’t get whiskey,” or, “How can you
drink that stuff?” On a rare occasion, I
may get a genuine, “I’d like to learn more about whiskey, but I don’t know
where to start?” This isn't a surprising reaction, since whiskey is a sadly misunderstood drink, something only old men and hardened gamblers drink, when, in fact, whiskey presents a journey of discovery unparalleled in the beverage world.
So, with that in mind, sit
down. Make yourself comfortable. You’re here to learn something about whiskey,
that golden elixir that has built and shaped much of Western Civilization as we
know it. This is an interactive experience, and I
encourage you to follow along at home.
You’ll need some supplies.
- Several glasses (snifter glasses are best, but old fashioned or highball
glasses will also do).
- Chilled (but not ice cold) spring or filtered water. (More on this in a minute.)
- A beer (ale, preferably homebrew)
And a bottle of each of the following:
- Bushmills
- Johnny Walker
- Macallan
- Laphroaig
- Maker's Mark
- Crown Royal (or similar)
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| Stand tall, laddies. This is our big number. |
Now,
before we dive head-long into the history, philosophy, and spiritualism of
whiskey, a couple of disclaimers and words of wisdom. First, let’s look at how we choose our
liquors. You’ve heard terms like “top
shelf” and “bottom shelf,” and that’s a good place to start. Liquor stores are set up to have the cheapest
stuff on the bottom, the most expensive at the top. When choosing a whiskey, price is one
consideration. Generally speaking, the
more expensive the whiskey (the closer to the top shelf), the better the
quality. A fifty dollar bottle of
whiskey will almost without fail taste superior to a ten dollar bottle. However, will a three hundred dollar bottle of
whiskey taste better than a hundred dollar bottle? Probably, but not so much that you’d notice. Eventually, price becomes a status symbol,
rather than an indication of quality.
The second indicator of quality is age.
Whiskey is aged oak barrels, which contribute significantly to its
taste, its complexity, the overall enjoyability. Most whiskey must be aged at least three or
four years just to called itself whiskey. Many brag about how long they’ve been aged right on the label. If it doesn’t brag, it’s younger, probably
between four and eight years for an average whiskey. So what’s the difference between twelve
years, twenty years, or thirty years?
Well, without going into too much detail, a twelve year aged whiskey
will be richer, smoother, and more complex than a younger whiskey, while a
twenty-year-old whiskey will be richer and more complex than a
twelve-year-old. (If this is making you
think you accidentally signed up for a wine course, you’re getting the
idea. Many wines are aged to improve
their taste and complexity in the same way, and many whiskeys are aged in
barrels that once aged wines. Having no
patience for words like “playful” or “nuanced” when it comes to beverages, this
will be the last time I reference wine culture, I promise.) But does the
difference in taste correspond to the difference in price between a twelve
year-old and, say, a thirty year-old?
Not in my opinion, though I’m sure many people will argue with me on
that point. (Please, try to convince
me! You’re buying!) Like with price, you want to stick with the
middle of the road, at least until you’ve gotten your feet wet and are ready to
become more adventurous. So find
something in the $20 or $50 range, aged more than ten years, and you’ll be
alright.
Now, we come to the question of neat versus on the
rocks. Ah, the age-old debate. Here, I have no absolute answer. I like to drink neat when I’m enjoying the
whiskey, or on the rocks (literally: my wife got me whiskey rocks for Christmas) when I’m just enjoying sitting back and relaxing with
a drink in hand. The cold of the ice
tends to hide some of the flavor in the whiskey (by numbing the tongue). Instead, add an ounce or so of chilled water, just to
cut into the alcohol taste and open up the other flavors to better enjoy them.
And
where do we start this world tour education of whiskey? Why, in Ireland of course! (Admit it, you’d guessed that already.)
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| "Wait...what?" - Scotland |
So grab yourself a pint of ale
and join me at the bar!
Excuse
me, did I say this post had nothing at all to do with beer?
I lied.
Just
sit back, enjoy the beer, and consider what beer is. Beer is one of the oldest fermented beverages
in the world. It is made from fermented
barley malt, spiced with bitter herbs, most commonly hops. Beer has played a vitally important role in
society in Ireland (and England, and northern Europe) for centuries, and for
very good reason. When people started
getting together in larger communities, namely cities, for the first time
thousands of years ago, they quickly ran into a very simple problem, but one
with no simple answer: What to drink?
Because they usually settled near a source of fresh water, often a river
or stream (good), and because all the waste from the people, and the animals
the people kept with them, went into the water (bad), and because there were
other cities sprouting up upstream that did the same thing (very bad), they
quickly found drinking the water made them sick. They didn’t know why drinking the water made them sick (germs would have to wait a
millennia or two to be discovered), they just knew the outcome, and they knew
they needed to find something else to drink.
Around the Mediterranean, grapes were turned into wine, and wine was
found to be by and large safe to drink.
Further north, like, say, in Ireland, grapes were not abundant, but
barley grew well, and barley that was allowed to malt and fermented into beer was also safe to
drink. And, by the way, got you good and
drunk! Slainte!
So
check this out: without the benefit of alcoholic beverages (and later drinks
like tea and coffee, based on boiled water), humans would have never been able
to form large communities without literally making each other sick. So when I say cities like Dublin or London
could never have existed without beer, I’m not exaggerating. At some point, distillation came over to the
Emerald Isle. When, exactly, this
happened, no one is exactly sure. What
is sure is this: Distillation of alcohol
was invented by Arabic chemists in the 8th century, and became a
staple of alchemy. It was used primarily
to create medicinal mixtures, mostly from wine, which were considered so strong
that they were referred to as aqua vitae, or “water of life.” This technique was eventually picked up by
monks in Europe and it spread from monastery to monastery. In time, it came to Ireland, where it was
used to distill beer (wine being in short supply). The resulting distillate was also called the
“water of life,” or, as it was rendered by the native celtic speakers, “uisce
beatha.” A few rough and tumble translations
into English, and that soon became known as whiskey.
But
let’s start with the beer. Take a nice,
long sip. Taste the malty sweetness, the
bitterness of the hops, and the refreshing effervescence of the carbonation. Now, kiss most of those flavors goodbye. Focus on the malty taste. That’s the first basic taste of Irish
whiskey.
Now, pour yourself a glass of
Bushmills.
Here is where the magic
happens. Whiskey is made, most
basically, from the distillation of beer.
Beer is warmed in a pot still until the alcohol evaporates (which
happens before the water). The vapor
travels through a tube until it reaches a kind of water-submerged roller
coaster called a worm, which cools the vapor back to liquid which has a much
higher alcohol content than the beer.
The resulting clear liquid is then aged in oak barrels, where is takes
on the second major characteristic of whiskey: oak. So, why would anyone do this?
Well,
at first distilled alcohol was used strictly for alchemical or medicinal
purposes. The transition to social
beverage has as much to with simple economics of barley farming as anything
else. Imagine you have a few acres of
barley you just harvested and you want to sell it at market. The market is some miles away, and you have
one wagon and a horse. An old, sick
horse. The trip will take at least two
days, and it will be nearly impossible to transport all your harvest in one
go. But, cook the grains and let them
ferment, and those acres of grain become a few barrels of beer, much easier to
pile into the cart and bring to market.
But the real economic revelation was that you could distill the beer,
and turn a few barrels into one barrel, and it will fetch more money at market
than the barrels of beer or the raw grain.
Furthermore, this likely led to the greatest innovation in beverages
since the invention of distillation.
Imagine you’re carrying a barrel of whiskey (a colorless, fiery
distillate) to market, and you stop at a tavern, have a few too many pints,
sleep late, get caught in a freak storm, then get lost a few times, and a trip
that should have taken a couple days ends up taking a month. When you get there, you offer a sample of
your whiskey, and are surprised to find the colorless liquid is no longer
colorless, and is a lot less fiery.
You’ve just discovered the benefit of aging. And your whiskey is suddenly worth more.
Now, for
those of you who neglected my advice against drinking on the rocks, the ice in
your glass should be pretty well melted after that informative, but ultimately
pointless, historical tangent.
Good. On to the whiskey! First, take a sniff. Inhale deeply, but slowly; snort too fast and
you’ll smell nothing by the burning odor of alcohol. Detect the other notes in the glass. Now, take a sip.
Whoa!
I said a sip, contrary to another common and popular drinking habit:
shooting. Shooting, I don’t have to tell
you, involves drinking the full tiny amount of whiskey at once, in one
gulp. It’s intended to minimize the
amount of taste you get of the whiskey, and tends to emphasize the least
desirable tastes, like the fiery, burning alcohol taste. No doubt about it, this stuff tastes serious,
and strong. But take another sip, and
start to taste the malty sweetness of it.
Reminds you a little of that beer, doesn’t it? (Well, okay, very little, but the taste is
still there nonetheless.) And that oak
aftertaste that lingers in the mouth, that’s from the aging.
This is the beginning of the celtic “water of
life,” in all its splendid forms. The
glory of whiskey is that it has always taken on unique characteristics of the
region where it is produced. And as
whiskey makers move, they take their knowledge with them and apply them to the
new regions where they end up. The Celts
of Ireland have a long history of fraternity with the Galls of Scotland, so it
is no surprise that whiskey-making eventually passed on to the Scots.
Pour
yourself a glass of Johnny Walker.
And here, we need to have a quick spelling lesson. Johnny Walker is a brand of Scotch Whisky, whereas
Bushmills is a brand of Irish Whiskey.
So what does that “e” have to do with the differences between the
drinks? Absolutely nothing, except for
geography. To simplify things a little,
I will be referring to Scotch Whisky as Scotch for the rest of this
lesson. If I lived in Scotland, I’d just
call it “whisky,” but I’m not that lucky.
If I called it “whisky” here in America, I’d have to risk including
Canadian Whisky, and I’m not quite there yet.
That’s a digression for another time.
Why did the Canadian’s adopt the Scottish spelling, while the American’s
took the Irish? To quote They Might Be
Giants, “People just like it better than way.”
Take a
sip of the Scotch. You’ll immediately
notice that stronger taste.
Call it more smokey, or more oakey, or whatever you want to say. I’m not going to get all wine-snob on you
now, but just realize that they taste different. Very different. Most Scotch is distilled twice, while most
Irish whiskey is distilled three times, causing the Scotch to have more malt
taste. Also, many Scotch makers utilize
barrels for aging the Scotch that were previously used for aging wines or
bourbons, lending very different flavors than are found in most Irish
whiskeys.
Whiskys
made in Scotland are considered Scotch.
But even within Scotland, Scotch from different regions can have very
different and unique characteristics.
For me, one of the greatest benefits to Scotch is the sheer variety and
depth of flavors that one can encounter while just casually tasting a handful
of different labels. Johnny Walker is a blended Scotch, and blended Scotches
are the most common, but many distillers now produce single malts that show off
the different tastes of each distillery, in each region.
Pour yourself a Macallan. While every single malt has its own flavor
profile, and an exhaustive list of the flavors in each distillery’s single
malts would go on for pages, each region also has its own defining
characteristics common in Scotches made in the region. Many of these are the result of local
variables, like the water used or the way the barley is malted. The Macallan, for instance, is from the
Speyside region, where many of the world’s most popular Scotches are from. Take a sip. Speysides are well-known for their smooth
finish, generally attributed the mineral-rich mountain water used to make them.
Now, to
understand how different geography within the same country can impact the
flavors of a Scotch, pour yourself a glass of Laphroaig. Laphroaig is from the Isle of Islay, off the
western coast. Islay is known for its
peat, which is used to dry the barley during the malting process. Peat, by the way, is a kind of partially
decayed layer of vegetation usually found in bogs and wetlands. Sounds just like the kind of thing you’d like
to put in your drink, doesn’t it? But
peat, in lowlands where trees and firewood scarce, is a valuable asset that can
be burned, kind of like coal, and has kept people warm for generations. Using it to dry germinated barley is just one
more use it’s been put to, and the unique, earthy, smoked taste it adds to the
barley, which is retained in the Scotch, is just an added benefit.
Take a
sip. Yep, that’s the peat! Sure, it’s got a strong, almost overpowering
taste, especially when compared to the smooth Speyside Macallan. I’m guessing, as a Scotch novice, you’re
inclined toward the Speyside yourself. You
probably think the peat of the Islay is a little too strong. But then again,
if you spent your day working in a peat bog, you’d probably want a strong
whisky to drink afterwards. As with all whiskeys,
Scotches, bourbons, or what-have-you, accept it and understand it for what it
is, where it comes from, and what it represents. You might never enjoy the peaty taste of
Laphroaig (though you might, as I do), hopefully, you will at least be able to
respect it.
As with
many poor residents of the British Isles, looking to start a better life,
Scotch and Irish distillers crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the 18th
and 19th centuries to try their luck in America. Distilling was hardly new to America, even
then. But before the American
Revolution, the prevalence of cheap molasses streaming in from British sugar
plantations in the Caribbean led to distillers focusing on producing massive
amounts of rum. But after the break with
Britain, rum fell out of favor with Americans, and they turned once again to
grain alcohol, turning to the locally grown grains, namely rye and corn. Rye whiskey was the most popular immediately
following the Revolution (so popular, no less an American than George
Washington owned a distillery making rye whiskey), and it was rye whiskey that
got the nation in trouble early on when a tax on distilleries caused a revolt in
Western Pennsylvania.
Following the
quashing of the Whiskey Rebellion by George Washington in 1794, some, though by
no means all, rye distillers moved south and met up with corn distillers. We'll get to them in a minute. But rye whiskey was still being produced in
northern states like New York and Pennsylvania, up until Prohibition. Following Prohibition, the distillation moved
further north and met up with Canadian distillers, creating a class of Canadian
Whisky. Here, again, we run afoul of
some confusing legal distinctions. Rye
whiskey (with an “e”) in the U.S. must contain at least 51% rye (similar to
Bourbon requirements). Canadian Whisky
(no “e”) is any whisky made in Canada, but many contain rye, and some are
therefore called “Canadian Rye.” But no
minimum rye percentage is required for the designation, and in fact, Canadian
Whisky can contain any number of grain alcohols blended together. This makes my patented form of broad
generalizations very difficult, but pour yourself a glass of Crown Royal, and
we’ll do our best. Canadian whisky has
something of a bad rep among whiskey snobs, because of the loose definition for
the appellation, but the way I see it, that also provides a huge range of
potential flavors of whisky. In the
Crown Royal, you’ll find tastes reminiscent of Irish whiskey. It has a stronger
bite, not as mellow as a blended Scotch, but a distinctive taste that some
people are fond of blending into mixed drinks.
But, as I said, following the Whiskey Rebellion, some rye distiller went south, where they met
with other distillers who were making whiskey out of corn. As time went by, the whiskey evolved, mixing
in other grain, but keeping a majority of corn in the mix. It was aged in American white oak barrels,
and they soon found that charring the inside of the barrel improved the aging
process. (I’d love to shake the hand of
whoever first decided to char the inside of oak barrels. That guy should've been given a Nobel Prize.) And in the wilds
of what was at the time the Kentucky frontier, a new kind of whiskey, named
after the region where it was being made, was born: Bourbon.
Pour
yourself a glass of Maker’s Mark.
Bourbon whiskey is defined and protected by law, to meet certain
exacting standards. Considered the
national alcoholic drink of the United States, Congress has deemed that Bourbon,
by law, must contain at least 51% corn, must be aged in charred new oak barrels,
and must be aged for a minimum of two years, along with several other more
esoteric guidelines. Many of the best
bourbons still come from Kentucky, where the climate contributes to a faster
aging period. Before you drink, look at
the bourbon, compare it to the scotches.
Note the reddish-amber hues. Now,
take a sip. You’ll notice the enormous
difference in taste between the corn-based whiskey and the barley-based
whiskeys you’ve tried thus far. You’ll
find a corn sweetness, and also a sharp alcohol tang, but with a fairly classic
whiskey oak finish. Bourbon has developed
a reputation as a quality liquor, the legitimate and respectable cousin of the
burning, unaged mountain moonshine that is the true American classic “corn
likker.” Bourbon barrels, since they
cannot be used over again, are prized for aging everything from scotch to
brandy to rum to even beer, imparting a subtle flavor from the bourbon whiskey in countless
other liquors produced the world over.
Sidenote about "Tennessee whiskey": Tennessee whiskey is, essentially,
Bourbon (he says after surreptitiously looking around for lurking Kentuckians
ready to pound his head in for saying so).
Both are made primarily from corn and both are aged in charred new oak
barrels. The difference between them is
the Lincoln County Process (Lincoln County being where Jack Daniels is made),
in which the whiskey is filtered through sugar maple charcoal before aging. That's the only difference, and it's one I don't think you can taste (Sorry, Jack.)
Bourbon,
having a somewhat stronger taste than prized single-malt scotches, and having
an underlying sweetness missing from the all-barley whiskeys, is commonly added
to whiskey cocktails, most famously the mint julep. And while the mint does compliment the
delicate corn and slightly burnt taste, how can anyone is good conscious take
something that has rested and matured usually for more than half a decade in
the darkness of a warehouse, giving up its angel share (that’s what they call
the small amount of alcohol that evaporates away through the barrel) to mellow
and take on the flavor of the charred oak, and just add sugar to it to mask and
subvert the complex flavors it developed?
It should be a crime. Yet judging
from the one hundred and twenty thousand mint juleps served just during the
Kentucky Derby, it’s not. God Bless America!
Although
these major styles of whiskeys have strong regional roots, each based on the
materials distillers in a particular environment had to work with, they have
managed over the years to reach across those regional lines and become beloved
by whiskey drinkers all over the world. So there you have it,
Irish alchemy distilling the essence of life from malted barley, oaked aged to
perfection in the Highlands of Scotland, traveling across the Atlantic to create not one but two (three, if you consider true rye whiskey in a class of its own) unique whiskey styles; proof positive (in any were needed)
that good whiskey can be found anywhere!
All thanks to the Irish!
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| Wait...what? |
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
