Did you like my 0.5 seconds of attempting to sound flirty? I’m super good at it. But that’s not what we’re talking about today. Today, we’re talking about whiskey!
What is whiskey? Well, that’s a bit of a tricky question. Whiskey (or whisky if you’re a heathen) is alcohol that is made from a grain mash. Yes, you read that right. Mash. It’s a mash of a bunch of grains. Sounds sexy, huh?
Some of these grains include corn, wheat, barley, and rye, and they can be malted or unmalted. Unmalted isn’t really a real word, but I use it sometimes when talking about barley because usually barley is malted when it comes to whiskey but some distillers use unmalted barley and it adds this nice spicy note and I digress.
Some Irish whiskey distillers use unmalted barley! This is for a very fun reason. Waaaaay back in the day (in the late 17th century) Britain was in a war. Wars cost money. So Parliament was like hey, we’re gonna tax the malted barley that’s being used to make whiskey. So to avoid paying the tax, Irish distillers went “screw you too” and started using a mix of malted and unmalted barley. This eventually became “pot still whiskey” and was a big difference between Irish and Scottish whiskies because somehow Scotland was exempt from that malt tax at first. History!
Anyway, back to whiskey as a whole. Whiskey is seriously regulated. The different types have all kinds of rules they have to follow to be called what they are. For example:
- Bourbon whiskey is at least 51% corn and must be aged in new charred oak barrels and also made in ‘MURRICA.
- Irish whiskey pretty much just needs to be made in Ireland, but it’s also usually triple distilled and it sometimes uses that unmalted barley I was ranting about earlier.
- Scotch (also whiskey) must be distilled in Scotland and then matured for at least 3 years in oak casks.
- And the list goes on…
If you want to impress people, you need to know exactly none of this. So… I guess that was a bit pointless. Sorry!
Instead, focus on these three things: the nose, the taste, the finish. You can learn more about these three things in the video, but here’s the important points! (Yaaay more bullet points.)
- Take a little sniff or two first to get used to the scent, but then it’s totally okay to shove your nose in there.
- You do not have to be able to identify all the scents and flavors! You can just learn to identify a couple common ones and then nod your head as you let other people talk. Or stick to major flavor profiles like saying it’s sweet, spicy, woodsy, or “complex”.
- Common scents and flavors: vanilla (especially if bourbon barrels were involved), citrus, dark fruits (like cherries etc), pear, oak, peat (like a mossy kinda thing), and nutmeg or cinnamon.
- Take one sip straight (neat), add a drop of water for the next sip, and then try it with ice to get the full tasting experience.
- There is no right way to do this. There’s standard ways, but just enjoy your booze.
Video Editor: Haley Marie
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