Whiskey v whisky

[ONeill]

Adore the woody smokey Whiskey from Islay. Bowmore, Ardbeg etc. To die for. A man's drink.

[Hardy]

It's a question of taste, I suppose. I can't stand the smoky taste and oily texture of Scotch,  even the best single malts.

If you're ever in Cork, it's worthwhile taking the Midleton distillery tour (all Irish Distillers' whiskies are distilled there now). Their story on the history of whiskey is fascinating. One of the things they tell you (OK, they're not exactly unbiased) is that, while the Scots trumpet their smoky flavour, Irish whiskey connoisseurs consider that as  contamination. It arises from the fact that the Scots always dried their malt over open (usually peat) fires and never figured out a way to keep the smoke away from the malt, whereas the Irish distillers centuries ago worked out a system of ducting the smoke away, while allowing the radiated heat to do its job. The result is that the Scots have for centuries been making a virtue of a defect in their technology.

Until the twentieth century, apparently, Irish was a byword for the best whiskey in the world. Then two or three things happened. First, prohibition in the US led to bootlegging. If you're a bootlegger, selling gut-rot moonshine, what are you going to label it as, in order to hoodwink the customer? Right – best Irish whiskey. So suddenly the name of Irish was mud.

Then, when prohibition suddenly ended, the Irish distillers, who had cut back production dramatically with the disappearance of their biggest market, were caught without capacity and couldn't supply the market. And if you add capacity now, you can't deliver properly aged whiskey for a number of years. Scotch accordingly gained a foothold in the US market that it has never lost. It did no harm to their cause that when your whiskey (sorry, whisky) tastes predominantly of smoke, it's harder to tell whether it's been properly aged.

Then, to further strengthen Scotch's hold on the American market, hundreds of thousands of GIs billeted in Britain during the war developed a taste for Scotch, which they brought back home with them and Scotch went from strength to strength, to the extent that it became synonymous with whiskey for most Americans.

I've bored many people with that story, so I don't see why this board should escape.

Anyway, for me, Midleton Very Rare is the best I've ever tasted, with Jameson 1780 next. After that, Redbreast or Crested Ten are what I'll order or have in the house for when I feel like something special. For a quick small one for the road after a few pints, I'll have a regular Jameson. I also love the good Bourbons – Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Four Roses. Anything that tastes of smoke that finds its way into the house is used on visitors or for rubbing into a stiff knee.

[southdown]

If theres two lesbians having a shower together, how can you tell which one is an alcoholic??







The one with the Black Bush.