PASSIONATE RATIONS

A large portion of class three of my bartending-certification course pertained to whiskey (or “whisky” if you’re in Scotland, Canada, Wales or Japan).

This is a good thing, because I admit to a certain amount of ignorance when it comes to the differences between bourbon and scotch, not the mention the confusion engendered by all the related terminology: single malt; blended malt; small batch; single cask….

I already knew, from a Scotch tasting my spouse and I designed some time ago, that, like wines, whiskeys vary greatly in flavor. Now I have some idea why.

Almost all whiskeys are aged in casks before bottling. It is the aging process that most dramatically affects the taste, but so do the following:

* the type of grain used (rye, corn, barley)
* growing conditions (as with grapes for wine, there are “good” and “bad” years for whiskey grain crops)
* malting (letting the grain sprout and then re-drying it)
* source of heat used in malting (e.g. peat)
* source of the water used to make the mash
* recipe used for the mash
* type of yeast used to ferment
* the amount of distillation
* type of wood used in the cask
* how the cask was prepared (e.g. charring)
* what the cask was used for before making whiskey
* condition of the cask
* amount of time the whiskey is aged
* whether the whiskey is bottled at cask-strength or diluted
* whether the whiskey is blended with other whiskeys before bottling

And speaking of blending: if the whiskey bottle does not mention the distillery where it was made, it probably was blended from several. Apparently, most of the major mass-produced brands are so blended: Seagrams 7, Chivas Regal, etc.

A point of confusion for me are the various geographic designations of whiskey:

* American (must be made in America and may refer to bourbon, rye, corn, Tennessee and various blends. No aging is required.)

* Canadian (must be made in Canada and is typically a multi-grain whiskey that must be aged at least three years)

* Indian (Made from fermented molasses and is more rum-like, though it is called whiskey in India)

* Irish (Made in Ireland and distilled from un-peated malt and aged in oak barrels for a minimum of three years)

* Scotch (Made in Scotland, go figure, and distilled at least twice; aged for a minimum of three years in oak casks. Usually peated.)

* Tennessee (Bourbon that has been filtered through sugar-maple charcoal before being placed in barrels to age).

Bourbon, by the way, is purely American and contains from 51 to 79% corn whiskey (if it’s greater than 79%, it has to be called “corn whiskey.”)

When we were in Japan, we were treated to a “whisky” by a family we visited, and we ended up buying some to bring home to us. Recently, Japan has burgeoned onto the world whiskey market as a real player, though whiskey is only about a century old in Japan and still can largely only be bought in Japan. The Japanese tend to use corn and millet, and occasionally rice (of course), as their grains, rather than rye or wheat.

I have to admit that, generally speaking, whiskey is not my favorite drink, but, given its great variations, I hesitate to say that I dislike it all. Like many things, its complexity becomes apparent the more you get to know it and that, my friends, is what keeps it intriguing.