Telling Whiskey from Whisky | Hacker News Reader

Telling Whiskey from Whisky

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144 pointsbookofjoe112 comments

Ireland gave Scotland whisky and the Scots perfected it. Ireland gave Scotland bagpipes and the Scots didn’t get the joke.

> Ireland gave Scotland bagpipes and the Scots didn’t get the joke.

They even spread it across the empire.

https://youtu.be/vkYbSwb0s4E

Bagpipes are amongst one of the oldest instruments, and originated in central Asia.

Also, Japanese whisky is amazing.

> Bagpipes are amongst one of the oldest instruments, and originated in central Asia.

Definitely, but local bagpipes were mostly replaced with the modern Great Highland bagpipe[1], just like local bowed string instruments[2] were mostly replaced with the modern violin family.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Highland_bagpipe

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebab

For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.

Dabke is the traditional dance from Lebanon.

Bagpipes are Scottish (or I guess Irish).

And somehow it all ends up in Jordan. You got to love the cross-pollination of cultures.

Uilleann pipes are far nicer sounding.

Unfortunately, if we come to deeply rely on the idea that Whisk[e]y that produces tree-like patterns is superior, producers will exploit that, finding means of inducing the pattern without actually enhancing the quality of Whiskey. Better to drink what you like and try not to be too worried about authenticity. Though sometimes the so-called authentic stuff is great.

Japan has a significant whiskey distillation setup, generally though to be in the Scots vein of production. I wonder what their signature would look like. Of course wasting any of it by purposely letting it evaporate is nearly a criminal act.

I watched a documentary on scotch, I believe they said two of the distilleries in Scotland are owned by Japanese investors. Including one that went under and was reopened.

Beam Suntory owns Laphroaig, Bowmore, Ardmore and Auchentoshan.

I'd be willing to donate 50mL of Hibiki 17 for science...

Hibiki 17 is fine whiskey.

That’s quite a score. Where did you buy it?

I can’t even find a 12 locally. Have to settle for bottles of Harmony.

So I guess I shouldn’t tell you where I live then... I’ve got Hibiki 12, 17, 21, 30, and 35 (plus I’ve got 350ml each of the five Whiskeys that are blended together to make Hibiki 17 that I got at the Suntory distillery outside Osaka).

Are we still on for the Halloween party at your place? I’ll bring a tray from the local mission taqueria.

My insurance agent thought I was crazy for wanting to itemize my liquor collection on my policy until I showed receipts for what it was worth. Insane as it sounds, just what I listed above is about the price of a new BMW (if everything was unopened that is) and that’s only a fraction of my full collection.

Good to hear you’re drinking it. What other rare bottles are in the collection?

Let’s chat outside HN if you want to know (see profile), don’t want to tangent any further than I have on this thread.

> So I guess I shouldn’t tell you where I live then

You live in Japan. In the respect of your privacy, I will not share your exact location here

> You live in Japan.

Nope, but have traveled there multiple times.

> In the respect of your privacy, I will not share your exact location here

1) if you knew my exact location, you wouldn’t have made the claim I live in Japan.

2) the tone definitely feels creepy, even if you were trying to cover yourself by implying you were doing the honorable thing.

> the tone definitely feels creepy

Impossible to get the "exact" tone via text.

> Impossible to get the "exact" tone via text.

Somewhat true, but re-read your statement again. When you don’t know me (or really anything about me), why would you imply you know my exact location and the only reason you didn’t share it was because of respecting my privacy? Your first sentence was fine (although factually incorrect), but I feel many who read your second sentence would find it to have a bit of a creepy tone (possibly why it was downvoted, but who knows what actually goes through someone’s mind who downvotes w/o commenting).

I'm sorry about that

The Japanese solved this problem. :)

My 17 is from some years ago. I fly through NRT or KIX or HND multiple times a year of something interesting at duty free over the past 20 years and tend to buy a bottle each trip to stockpile or give as gifts.

My standard purchase now is Kabuto (old g+g blend in a plastic samurai themed bottle) since they are $50 at JAL duty free and worth $300-400 on the second-hand market, since they are a JAL Duty Free exclusive. (I’m in the JAL F lounge at NRT right now, actually)

Hibiki was "discovered" a few years back, and now is basically sold out or overpriced. The 17 was a fine whisky in the $100-150 range, but it's not worth today's inflated price.

generally though to be in the Scots vein of production

I didn't even know Japan made whisky (whiskey?) until about a month ago when trying a Nikka Yoichi brought to us by a Japanese colleague. We were very impressed. This was easily as tasty as many of the better Scotch single malts. In fact I bet if people wouldn't see the bottle and would be asked what it was the majority would say 'good Scotch' :)

Scot here - I'm really impressed with Japanese whisky. The Japanese seem to treat creating good whisky (and gin) as an artform - I love their persuit of perfection.

I'm a big fan of Yamazaki 18 year for special occasions (hard to find right now) and the 12 year for an anytime drink.

Hakushu is also great, but I haven't tried their 18/25 aged whiskeys.

Yamazaki 18 won a 'Gold'[1] award five years back through the International Spirits Challenge and has been difficult to find reasonable prices since.

1 - https://www.suntory.com/about/award/

Many distilleries are now owned by Japanese. Eg, the Bowmore.

The best part of drinking whiskey is smelling the glass the next day. It's like an oak candle with all of the sugars that got left behind.

Anyways, not sure what the point of this study was other than a reason for scientists to have many bottles of whiskey open in the lab.

“I love cooking with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food”

Having lot's of open bottles of whiskey (and other alcohols) in the lab is venerable part of the science method where I live. Especially in the theoretical math and physics faculties.

I always thought that using new, charred barrels was a requirement specific to Bourbon, not to "American Whiskeys" in general.

Most American whiskeys require new charred barrels, corn whiskey being the most common exception.

See pages 21-24: https://www.ttb.gov/images/pdfs/whisky-webinar.pdf

If you find this article interesting you might find this interesting as well!

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/07/these-pi...

[Using colored lights and editing a photographer turned whisky sediments into galactic looking works of art.]

This is a real ketchsup on the hot dog situation

  A Scotsman who spells
  Whisky with an ‘e’,
  should be hand cuffed 
  and thrown head first in the Dee.

  In the USA and Ireland, 
  it’s spelt with an ‘e’
  but in Scotland
  it’s real ‘Whisky’. 
  So if you see Whisky 
  and it has an ‘e’,
  only take it,
  if you get it for free! 
  For the name is not the same 
  and it never will be,
  a dram is only a real dram,
  from a bottle of ‘Scotch   Whisky’.
  ~ Stanley Bruce.

[1] http://thearrogantmale.blogspot.com/2011/04/helpful-poem-to-...

Stanley Bruce can pound the sand on the banks of the Dee. In the world of whiskey, there are great bottles from Scotland, Ireland, the US, Japan, and the even Mexico, although they call whiskey tequila.

Tequila is not whisk(e)y. It’s fine, but it’s not the same thing.

This article calls bourbon whiskey. If we consider whiskey could be made from corn we may as well allow agave or potatos too.

Everybody calls bourbon whiskey.

No, Americans call bourbon whiskey. More to the point, something being common doesn't make it correct.

Eventually it does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_description

I think he was just having a bit of fun :-)

For those who don’t know what the “dee” referred to in the poem is, it’s a river in northeast Scotland near Aberdeen. [1]

1- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Dee,_Aberdeenshire

For bonus-points the prefix "Aber" on Scottish place-names largely means "at the mouth of a river".

So you have "At the mouth of the river"-Deen. (Though of course the real rivers are the Dee and the Don, so it isn't as simple as it should be!)

What drives someone to feel the need to gatekeep so aggressively like this?

I suspect that it's some interpretation of how to protect and maintain culture. This reverence of tradition is definitely much stronger in some places than others.

"There is no 'e' in 'Scotland'" (if you want to tell "whisky" (Scotch) from "whiskey" (everything else))

Only USA, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland call it Whiskey. Any other country not mentioned that distills and bottles Whisky does not use the 'e'.

But not all American whiskys are spelt "whiskey", e.g., Maker's Mark: https://www.makersmark.com/

Buy those all have "e"s in them (assuming you expand USA). And hey, Canada and Japan don't have "e"s either. I think we're onto something.

I thought it was Scotland that got exclusive use of whisky without the "e" in the same way that only French get to use champagne.

The difference in spelling is due to the fact the word for Uisce Beatha was brought into the English language twice. Once from Irish Gaelic before the Great Vowel shift in English and a second time from Scots Gaelic after the shift.

Japan also drop the e. Japanese whisky is quite interesting though, some of the stuff is completely out there (eg using seaweed as flavouring) and other stuff could be mistaken for being a scotch. I seem to recall reading that a lot of Japanese distilleries were trained in Scotland.

Last year I had a bottle of whisky from India which I’m pretty sure also dropped the e. That too was a lovely drink and could easily have been mistaken for scotch.

A lot of Japanese Whisky isn't even from Japan.

https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/features/19680/not-all-jap...

I hear this said a lot, but is there an example you can think of of a mainstream Japanese whiskey --- a Nikka or Suntory, for instance --- that isn't 100% Japanese spirit? There's Akashi, but the controversy there is that it's not 100% whiskey, not that it isn't 100% Japanese.

I think the trouble lies in the quantity of aged whisky Japan is exporting. They did not have a lot of whisky production 25+ years and so it is simply not possible for them to be bottling this much whisky from 25 year old Japanese casks.

I hate to link to Bloomberg but this article is pretty good:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-19/that-expe...

That was really interesting thanks, did not know that. I like a glass of Yamazaki on the rocks but to me Japanese whiskies have always been a little too smooth and balanced to enjoy neat anyway, compared to a lot of Scotch whiskys which have more character and more rough edges.

Whisky is not a region of Scotland. The use of Champagne is protected because it's a region of France.

There is also EU law for the protection of spirits, which have not been typically named after specific regions. For example, ouzo can only be produced in Greece. Not sure what the status of whisk(e)y is on this.

Scotch whisky has to actually be Scotch—i.e. from Scotland. Whisk(e)y can be from anywhere.

The way to tell Scotch from other whiskey is that Scotch always says Scotch on it.

While there are patterns with which countries use whisky vs. whiskey, there's no legal requirement.

Technically, although this isn't actually the distinction OP made so you're absolutely right, Scotch isn't the same category as Scottish whisky/whiskey. It doesn't simply mean it's made in Scotland.

Or you can just ignore all this silliness and spell it in whatever way looks most natural to you.

You can and many people do.

However it is not silliness to detail regional variations in spelling, particularly when, as in this case, they give clues to lines of heritage.

Spelling things correctly and trying not to look ignorant isn’t silliness.

Except Japan also uses Whisky without the e

There is an E in Wales.

But not in Cymru.

Eh? I mean, literally, yes, there is an e in Wales, but if we're talking whisky, there isn't..

Wales's primary Whisky distillery [0] calls it whisky.

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penderyn_(whisky)

The GP is responding to a claim that you could have a rule that it is spelled whisky in countries which don't have an e in their name (whisky in Scotland, whiskEy in IrEland). GP is pointing out, same as you, that Wales would be a counter-example to this rule.

This is not a good mnemonic to use at all. Basically only the US and Irish whiskey use 'whiskey' (and legally, you can drop the 'e' in the US), whereas everyone else (India, Taiwan, Japan, WalEs, SwEdEn, GErmany, FrancE, DEnmark, etc.) use 'whisky' (and tend to largely (but not totally) follow SWA regulations). Don't sleep on so-called 'world whisky'. You'll be missing out.

Indeed. For me the distinction is primarily between Scotch whisky (which is peated and smoky, particularly Islay), and Irish whiskey (not peated (except Connemara), but smooth). American whiskeys (bourbon, rye, etc) are not really my cup of tea, though I’m sure there’s some good stuff out there.

I'm not sure what you mean, regarding peat, lots of Scottish whisky doesn't use peat smoked malt.

You’re right, I should have said “typically”. My understanding is that the malted barley for Scotch is dried with smoke that often (but not always, as you point out) comes from peat, but it’s not dried in closed kilns as it is for Irish whiskey. So while you might have more or less peat, you still have more smoke than in Irish whiskey.

There are a small number of distilleries that use peat, almost exclusively the island distilleries. The vast majority of scotch is _not_ peaty. There's at least 50 distilleries in the speyside area/category (notably not peaty), vs 10 in campbelltown and islay.

Agreed. Broadly there are three types of Whisky in Scotland:

Highland. Lowland. Island.

Varieties from the same region share characteristics, but they're distinct from each other.

I would go as far as to say that most scotch is not peated.

https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usfeatures/maltwhisky... seems to indicate that coke/oil is used these days, with peat being added if wanted for flavours.

I'm curious how historically the kilns would be fired across Scotland, if peat was more prevalent?

http://www.bairds-malt.co.uk/Bairds-Malt/Process/process mentions about using hot air.

https://www.laphroaig.com/en/whisky/our-process - Has some nice videos, including them using solely peat to kiln the malt.

Most distilleries, including the best known, don't malt and dry their own barley to begin with.

The difference between Irish and scotch whiskies isn’t the smoky flavour. In fact most scotch isn’t peted. It’s the distilling process.

> It’s the distilling process

As well as the fact that irish whiskey generally has a mashbill containing a portion of unmalted barley. Not sure, but I think it is at _least_ 30% as per the Irish Whiskey Association rules?

Single malt Scotch requires (as per SWA rules) a 100% malted barley mashbill.

Blended Scotch, on the other hand, has no such requirement, and is typically a blend of Single malt Scotch and alcohols from other cereals.

> Kentucky—a state with twice as many barrels of aging whiskey as residents

That completely blows my mind. I went to the Woodford Reserve distillery recently but i didn't realize the state made that much.

I don't know if it is that crazy.. California produces around 86 million bottles of wine every year, which is over twice the population of California.

If you consider how long whiskey ages, it really isn't surprising that there is that many barrels.

True... although a barrel is significantly larger than a bottle. Rough napkin math, around 250 bottles per barrel.

You need to factor in evaporation. The longer the whiskey is in the barrel the more that evaporates (the "angel's share").

As I understand it: if you buy a barrel, you're going to get 180-200 bottles. But remember also that whiskey is almost always diluted when it's bottled; the cask strength will be 50-60, and the bottle will be 40-50.

Kentucky has 4.5 million people. A barrel is 53 gallons (100L) which means they have ~477.7 million gallons of whiskey. 2.4 billion bottles.

The numbers seem staggering, after doing the napkin math I'm curious how accurate they are.

Scotland has 5.44 million people [1] and 20 million casks laid down [2], for a ratio of 3.67:1. If these Kentuckians want to get serious about booze, they need to raise their game.

[1] https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2019/scotlands-population...

[2] https://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/insights/facts-figures/

If they did the prices would fall back to the levels me my old man were used to. You know before every other doofus was drinking Manhattans, buying good bottles and either cellaring them or trying to flip them. I was forced to collect a bourbon bunker because it became endless September oh about 12 years ago.

What’s the average age of whiskeys in Scotland vs Kentucky? If my hunch is correct the Scotch whisky’s are aged for a longer period of time. It could explain why they have more.

Yes, scotch is aged much longer than bourbon. A 12-year scotch is a supermarket product, and liquor stores are full of 21+ year olds; bourbons average closer to 7-9, but can get bottled much younger, and supposedly don't benefit from super-long aging periods the way scotch (supposedly) does.

If 10% are harvested per year then 250M bottles must be sold each year, which seems credible, assuming much is exported.

They taxed on those barrels every year.

Shouldn't that be spelled "Kentuckey"?

My in-laws are Scots. Don't call it "Scotch" as they will either look at you funny or chastise you. It's just whisky.

I was delayed at Heathrow for an hour and a half. Bad weather is not uncommon there. I get to Dublin late. The night porter had my key ready for me when I walked in the door. Quick as a rabbit, I was checked in. The bar was long closed. I asked, “any chance of getting a drink?” “Why yes,” was the answer. Out from the back came another man. He opened the bar doors and in I went. I asked, “may I have a whiskey?” He answered, “Here is our whiskey,” pointing to a well stocked section of Irish. “Here is our Scotch, and here is our bourbon.” I opted for the aged whiskey and it was good indeed.

You know it is a matter of where you stand, in Ireland whiskey is Irish whiskey as it should be. In the US I’ll ask for whiskey and I have a choice! bourbon or rye. Its only right that in Scotland whisky is Scotch whisky.

While the my Irish hosts showed great hospitality in opening the bar they were not done. I asked about dinner and the bar keep made it for me.

I’ve been all over the world but my trip to rainy Dublin is so memorable for how well I was treated.

Any chance you can share the name of this place?

Scot here - I agree. The word "Scotch" used to refer to whisky is a very American thing.

I must have seen that title 10 times, but it wasn't until I clicked through to the article that I realized there was a spelling difference in it.

Americans have whiskey and Scots have whisky

Ahem, the Irish had whiskey a thousand years before Americans.

Yes. In fact The word Whiskey comes from the Gaelic usquebaugh, which means "Water of life".

... and I know this priceless piece of trivia because the Clancy brothers mention it in the intro to Finnegans Wake.

Which is a really common name for booze, cf Vodka.

Edit: Actually the link to vodka might be bad etymology on my part, my Russian teacher taught me that. Eau de Vie, and tonnes of others fit.

Akvavit, for another

Which country has more citizens of Irish heritage?

The one where they don't dress up in green and drink irresponsibly one day of the year.

Nobody likes plastic Paddies.

Hyphenated Paddies.

> Ahem, the Irish had whiskey a thousand years before Americans

Not to be overly pedantic, but it was actually only around 700 years. Irish whiskey was first produced in the 12th century, and the first Kentucky whiskey is from the late 18th century.

That’s a fair point but I believe my point stands!

They're a lot of the same people!

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