Whisky - its definitely moreish.

Irish Whisky

Ireland is the motherland of whisky. Long before the scots starting distilling their version of the malty spirit, the Irish had perfected it. The only reason we know Scotland as the founding father of whisky is because of Prohibition in America, where the newly popular blended whiskies were imported as bootleg liquor over the long standing Irish preference. As far as taste goes, Irish and Scottish whiskies are very similar, with only a few small variations contributing to the difference in flavour.

Irish whisky, as opposed to its Scottish counterpart, is triple distilled instead of double distilled. This simply refers to the amount of times the spirit is run through the still. I mentioned earlier that whisky is made from beer, but its a tiny bit more complicated than simply crossing your fingers and wishing your beer into delicious whisky.

Early leprechaun distillation was fraught with problems

Your local lager down the pub, at full strength, is about 5% alcohol by volume. That means that the rest of the liquid is water. To make a whisky (which is much more alcoholic than just beer), the alcohol needs to be seperated from the water. Ethyl alcohol, the stuff that makes us so interesting and fun and amazing in bed, evaporates at around 76 degrees celcius. Water, as we know, boils at 100 degrees. So, if an alcoholic beverage is heated to 76 degrees, the alchol turns into gas and evaporates, leaving most of the water behind. The process of distillation is simply catching the evaporating, delicious alcohol as it evaporates and cooling it down again til its a liquid, drinkable form. After distilling once, what was once beer at 5% (actually, distillers beer is usually between 6-12%. It's also flat and doesn't have any hoppy bitterneses to it, but... you get the idea) will be alchol at approximately 30%. Do it again and the spirit will be approximately 70%. By distilling more and more times, you strip more water and get clean alcohol. When we distill though, there is a small percentage of impurities in the liquid that are essentially flavouring agents. These flavouring agents gradually lessen the higher in alcohol the liquid becomes, creating a lighter and (argueably smoother) beverage. So, a 60% alcohol will have more flavour to it than an 80% alcohol will. At 96% alcohol, you'll have vodka, with no flavour or smell at all. This is essentially the key difference between scottish and irish whisky. Scottish whisky is distilled (with loads of those flavouring agents) at approximately 60% alcohol. Irish is distilled to approximately 80%. When it comes out of the barrel and into the bottle, they add water to it so both scottish and irish whisky will be at approximately 40% alcohol, 60% water by the time you get your lips around it.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Irish whisky has less flavour than scottish whisky. It simply means that the whisky made will be a little bit lighter on the palate. Think of it as cordial. Scottish whisky is cordial with a bit less water, so its really strong and sweet. Add a bit more water and it become a little less strong, a bit lighter and easier to drink. Make sense? Its ok if its a little confusing, because the only real thing you need to know is how they differ in taste. An Irish whisky will be less pungent, with softer flavours that are easier to drink. It still tastes like whisky, though, and that is what is important. Remember how I talked about malting the barley so that there is more sugar to turn into whisky? Well, Irish whisky will also occasionally use unmalted barley as well as malted barley. This creates a bit of difference in flavour as well. If you were ever had a grandfather that served in the army and kept his medals and things in a special box, you may have noticed the smell of linseed oil that he used to keep them shiny and nice. Unmalted barley gives whisky the smell of your grandad's medal box. That's the only noticeable difference.

There are only 3 distilleries in Ireland. Of the whiskies they make, only a few are readily available in Australia, and really only two that bars will stock. One is Jamesons (everyone's go-to Irish whisky) and one is Bushmills. Depending on how you pray, Jamesons is for the cats with a lot of guilt and confessing of sins, and Bushmills is for the cats who drink tea and chat with the reverend. Overall, they are both delicious offerings. The Bushmills, especially the Black Bush, alwyas reminds me of sultana bran. Lots of malt notes with hints of dried fruit and chocolate. Jamesons has a nice malty flavour and is quite light on the palate as well. Horses for courses, really, but I stick to my Catholic upbringing when it comes to Irish whiskies. You should, of course, go for whichever one tickles your fancy. Other noteable Irish whiskies are Tullamore Dew (lots of Grandad's medal cabinet) and Tyrconnel (why are you spending $80 on a whisky I didn't even really describe).

Canadian Whisky
The real shame about Canadian whisky (as an Australian bartender and boozehound) is that the only Canadian whisky that is easy to get ahold of is Canadian Club. If you find a boutique-y little bottleshop, you might be lucky to find some Crown Royal, but thats about it. However, that doesn't mean that Canadian whisky isn't a tasty beverage. After sipping on a Candian Club 18yr old, you'll agree with me.
Canadian whiskies take influence from a few different schools of whisky to create a style that is unique to the maple-leafers. Earlier I mentioned that the whisky you drink is going to taste like what its made from. Well, here is where Canadian whiskies differ from Scotch.

Canadian whiskies do make their beer out of barley grains. But they also make it from rye grains, corn grains and wheat grains as well! Each of these different beers then gets distilled seperately into a little whisky all of its own. These whiskies are then blended together in different proportions to create the stuff you get in the bottle. The cool thing about this is that all the different distilleries in Canada (I'm pretty confident there are about 8 of them) will create blends with different proportions of rye whisky, barley whisky, corn whisky and wheat whisky to make a really diverse realm of flavours. Add on top of that the different ages they get bottled at and you can see that there are loads of whiskies to try. Canadian whiskies tend to be similar to Irish whiskies as far as the weight of the spirit. They're usually quite light and dry and they always have that sexy little peppery spiciness from the rye whisky (which is why it taste so damn good with ginger ale!).

American Whisky
I've got a big smile on my face as I write this, because I must admit, I am a sucker for American whiskies. Scotch holds a place in my heart and I do love her, but straight bourbon and rye are the sexy nymphs that throw themselves at me. Despite my protests of devotion to scotch, whenever I'm out, I always end up sipping a bourbon (just not in view of Ardbeg. I don't need to put her through that).

Could you upset something so lovely?

Bourbons have such a rich array of flavours and there is such a diverse range of styles to choose from draws me to them. You can guaruntee that each bottle will have sexy vanilla and oaky notes to them, and you can bet your bottom dollar that you'll get some stone fruits or berries playing through the sweetness as well. Here, most definitely, is a spirit that needs to be enjoyed without coke. Sip on a Wild Turkey 8yr old or some Buffalo Trace and you'll understand my meaning.

Straight Bourbon
So! What is it that makes a bourbon a bourbon? The Americans have actually put in a very strict and rigorous set of rules that must be adhered to for a whisky made in the states to be called a bourbon, but it's somewhat technical. Here's the cliffnotes. Again, bourbon is made from beer, the interesting thing about bourbon is that its not just a single grain that makes the beer. To be bourbon, the beer needs to be made up of a majority of corn, and will also always have a small proportion of barley. The rest can be any make up of grains. Some distillers decide to use rye grains, some like to use wheat and there are one or two that decide to use corn, wheat, rye and barley! The bourbons that use rye have a tendency to be a bit spicy (think of Wild Turkey or Woodford Reserve) and bourbons that use wheat tend to be a bit softer and sweeter (Makers Mark is the main offender here, although the Pappy Van Winkle range is also a wheated bourbon and is really, really good). The other big contributer to the flavour of the end product is the whisky needs to be aged in new charred American oak barrels.

The ageing process isn't something I've gone into much because its kind of complicated. When booze comes out of the still, it is a clear spirit. The reason that whisky is such a dark colour is because of the time it spends resting in barrels (the age statement on bottles refers to how long the spirit lay in barrels. It won't improve at all once it goes into the bottle, so don't try and age that bottle of Johnnie Black - it don't work that way!). Have you ever spilt oil, or heaven forbid blood, on untreated wood? Did you notice how, even after you wipe it off, it leaves a patch in the wood that won't come out? That's because wood is porous - it breathes in and out. So when whisky is put in the barrels, it starts to sink into the wood on the inside of the barrel. As the weather warms up, the liquid expands and pushes even further into the wood. Then, when it cools, it contracts and sucks back out of the wood. While the whisky is in the wood, it picks up flavour and colour and leaves behind some of the rough edges of the alcohol. That's basically how ageing works. The charring of the barrel is essential for the process to work properly - it doesn't give the whisky a burnt flavour, so don't stress. What the whisky does get from the new barrels is a vanilla flavour, similar to the way vanilla extract tastes.

There are dozens of bourbons available on the market, and there are some truly nice ones at bargain prices, if you know where to look. It comes down to what flavours you like in your bourbon as to what you should buy. One thing to note is that some bourbons will have 'small-batch' or 'single-barrel' on the label. These are usually the high-end bourbons and their price reflects the quality. Typically, these bourbons will be a little bit stronger than normal (make sure you check the abv - alcohol by volume - on the label) but that's a good thing. The higher the alcohol content, the more flavour that will carry through from the spirit. This is different from the higher the alcohol is distilled to, so don't confuse the two. Once its in the bottle, it has already been cut with water and doesn't necessarily mean that its going to be light tasteing.

Once bourbon comes off the still, nothing but water can be added to it until it goes into the bottle you drink it from. This raised a bit of contention when the big name behind the next category, Tennessee whiskies, decided to start filtering his whisky before ageing.

Tennessee Whisky
Tennessee whisky is really a small category. There are only two distilleries making Tennessee whisky - George Dickel and Jack Daniels. Have you ever wondered why JD tastes so different to other bourbons? If you scope the side of a bottle, it tells you the difference, but I'll throw it down now so you don't have to check one of the many, many bottles you (if you're anything like me) have lying around your house. It mentions that the whisky is mellowed by passing through 14 feet of sugar maple charcoal. Charcoal is basically the most effective form of filtration that you can use with alcohol. Have you ever heard of someone getting poisoned and eating an activated charcoal tablet? Charcoal soaks up loads of different impurities (I'm not really sure why - it's science!), so when the whisky gets passed through the charcoal, it has the effect of removing some of the undesireable impurities in the whisky. It does, however, leave the whisky with a very prominent maple-syrup taste. Its because of this that JD isn't considered a bourbon. It is, however, considered to be delicious.

Serving suggestion

Rye Whisky
Rye whisky is bourbon's counterpart. Where bourbon is all vanilla and sweetness with a hint of spice, rye whisky is all vanilla, spice and everything else nice.

Rye whisky

 It's almost identical to bourbon, the only exception is that the beer that its made from is made up of a majority rye grains instead of corn. Think of 100% ryegrain bread, that nice peppery bite it has? That's what rye whisky is all about. If you can find a bottle of the Wild Turkery rye, do it. Otherwise, the Rittenhouse is awesome stuff and super cheap.

And that's about it! There are a few other whiskies that get made in a few different countries, but for the most part they just take a leaf out of the scots book and make malt whisky. There are some cool offerings coming out of Tasmania if you're interested in Australian whisky (check out The Lark's bottlings. They are all single-barrel, high abv whiskies and taste amazing). Otherwise guys, as I always say: "Drink, drink and be merry."