Whiskey or Whisky?

Whiskey versus Whisky – this request for the breakdown between the two came from the Twitterverse. Thanks for the suggestion internet! I had a lot of fun researching this. Whiskey generally all still tastes the same to me, but I sound much smarter when ordering it.

Grab yourself a single malt and learn a little something!

WHISKEY OR WHISKY?

Technically, both spellings are correct. The spelling indicates where the whiskey/whisky came from. (I’m going to use whiskey for the purposes of this post)

WHISKEY : distilled in Ireland and the United States

WHISKY : generally used for whiskies distilled in Scotland, Wales, Canada, Japan and other countries

Fun fact: is a Gaelic word that means, “water of life”

(I call bullshit as I’ve had many an occasion where I’m sure whiskey has tried to kill me.)

TYPES OF WHISKEY

The main players are Irish, Rye, Scotch, Bourbon, and Tennessee whiskey.

What makes whiskey, whiskey?

So all whiskies are basically fermented grain mash. Some of these grains can be malted – we’ll get to that in a second.

What makes whiskey unique is that it’s aged in wooden barrels. It does not age in the bottle, so the time in the cask is critical to its maturity and it what goes on the bottle.

What’s a Single Malt?

Single Malt just means that all of the whiskey in your bottle is from a single distillery. A single bottle can contain whiskey from multiple casks, but only whiskies specifically labeled “single cask” are from the same cask.

Apparently single cask is not necessarily higher quality than single malt.  It just means that the whiskey hasn’t been blended with whiskies from other casks.

Having a blended whiskey also means that there could be whiskies with various degrees of aging in the same bottle. By booze-law the age of the youngest whiskey must be stated on the bottle. Also, you aren’t suppose to mention the ages of any of the other whiskey in the blend! Check out the Compass Box’s Three Year Old Deluxe’s cheeky description to see an example.

“…regulations only permit us only to share details of the age of youngest component! No matter. For it is this three year-old that is most important to us.”

Statement: Malt whiskey is made entirely from malted barley.

WTF is malted barley?

So “malt” refers to the process which develops enzymes to break down grains to sugar.

It goes like this:

Malted barley (grains)

⇣

soaked in water

⇣

begin germinating

⇣

***

⇣

dried to stop germinating

***In some cases (like when making Scotch) the barley is exposed to peat smoke while it’s drying to give it a smoky flavor

WTF is PEAT??

Peat is basically some hella old dead plants in Scotland that you use to make a heated fire and expose the barley to while it’s drying. It gives Scotch that oh-so-sophisticated smoky flavor.

Who knew whiskey was so organic?

Multnomah Whisk{e}y Library in Oregon

DYK? Because I sure didn’t.

IRISH

• Must be aged in wooden casks for at least three years
• Required to be produced in Ireland (seems fair)
• Usually distilled three times
• Usually made from un-peated malt* (no dead plants!), which I’ve read is what gives it a “spicy” flavor instead of the “smoky” flavor of scotch
  • Some Irish Whiskey is peated, but it’s not the norm

RYE 

• Must be aged for three years
• American Rye Whiskey must contain at least 51% malted rye
• Also referred to as “Canadian Whisky”, but this seems to be a topic of contention
• Basically for Rye Whiskey to be Rye Whiskey from Canada it only needs to contain rye, period. Pretty low maintenance.

SCOTCH

• Must aged for at least three years in oak casks
• The age of the youngest whisky used in a blend must be indicated as the age on the bottle
• Required to be distilled in Scotland
• Made from malted barley
• This is the malted barley that is exposed to the weird dead peat plants for that ‘smoky’ flavor

BOURBON

• Has no minimum aging period with the exception of “straight bourbon” which has to be aged for two years
  • However – any bourbon aged less than four years must state the age of the bourbon on the bottle
• Made from a grain mixture containing at least 51% corn
• Can only be labeled “Bourbon” if it was distilled in the USA
• This is debated but I hear it’s named after Bourbon County, Kentucky

TENNESSEE

• Almost identical to Bourbon in terms of it’s booze laws
• “Tennessee Whiskey” actually has really specific rules though. If the whiskey is made in Lincoln County, it needs to be filtered through sugar maple charcoal.

Sources
http://www.whiskyforeveryone.com/whisky_basics/whisky_or_whiskey.html
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-pruett/whiskey-bourbon-scotch-ry_b_9548538.html
http://www.realmendrinkwhiskey.com/know-your-whiskey-the-difference-between-bourbon-and-scotch/
http://mentalfloss.com/article/18839/what-makes-whiskey-bourbon-and-other-bourbon-faqs
https://vinepair.com/spirits-101/