What are the differences between these alcoholic beverages? Also, is one intrinsically better than the other?
p.s. Did I mention rye whiskey?
Most differences are attributable to the type and amounts of grain used to make the whiskey, and also the barrels and aging conditions. Scotch whiskys also have a distinctive peaty or smoky quality. None is inherently better than another, it’s a matter of tastes.
For instance, a rye whiskey will taste a bit more intense than a whiskey made from corn. Which is “better” depends on what a person prefers.
Bourbon and scotch are types of whiskey. Bourbon is a whiskey type produced in the United States and made primarily from corn. Scotch is a whiskey produced, unsurprisingly, in Scotland, and made primarily from malt, but can also be made from wheat or rye.
As Dag says, which (if either) of them is better than the other is a matter of taste. Note also that there are many different bourbons, and many different scotches, and there are more and less highly regarded examples of both.
Ref 27 CFR 5.22(b)
Whisk(e)y is a generic term for a spirit made from cereal grains and aged in wooden casks with the exception of corn whisky (moonshine) and so whiskey would be any grain alcohol that maintains the character of the underlying cereals (that’s why vodka and Everclear are not whiskey).
Bourbon is a whisky made from at least 51% corn in the mash. It is considered an American whisky and most countries agree that a “bourbon whisky” must be American made although there is no official geographical appellation for bourbon. In addition to the corn requirement, it must be aged in charred oak barrels and there are certain limits on the proof for distilling, aging and bottling.
Rye whisky is similar except that it is made from at least 51% rye and tends to be a bit rougher on the palate than other whiskies.
Scotch or scotch whisky must be made in Scotland and conform with U.K. law of what is distinctive for a scotch, the latest regulations going into force on 23 November 2009 (2009 #2890).
Interestingly, the only whisky allowed to be made in Scotland is Scotch whisky.
While not required, Scotch has a characteristic smoke flavor that comes from drying the grain over peat fires which makes it unique in the whisky world.
There’s also Irish Whiskey (generally distilled three times, as opposed to twice in Scotland, with no use of peat smoking) and distilleries have started producing English Whisky again, which died out in the early 20th century but has seen a revival.
In Canada and Scotland it is Whisky.
In Ireland and the United States it is Whiskey. Note that Ireland and United States have an “e”, and Canada and Scotland do not.
US law, at the very least, requires that anything sold in the US as bourbon be American-made. Until very recently, the only bourbon distilleries in America were all located in Kentucky, though the craft spirits boom has lead to bourbon popping up all over the Union. It’s additionally required that bourbon be aged in new oak barrels - the barrels cannot be reused for aging bourbon after the first batch, and generally end up getting sold to other distilleries or breweries which might use them to age Scotch or certain kinds of craft beer.
Another sub-category of bourbon which was mostly extinct a few years ago, but has come back into vogue with the craft spirits boom, is bottled-in-bond. In addition to the regular legal standards for bourbon, bonded bourbon must be the product of a single distillery, produced within one calendar year, must be aged for at least four years in a federally bonded warehouse, and must be bottled at at least 100 proof as opposed to the 80/86 proof typical of traditional bourbons.
Moderator Action
Moving thread from General Questions to Cafe Society, where they serve drinks as well as food.
I believe different whisk(e)ys are preferred in different cocktails. For eaxmple, I would only use a good blended scotch to make a Rusty Nail. I’d use Irish to make Irish coffee. I’d use bourbon to make a mint julep. And I’d use Canadian rye to make an Old Fashioned.
Tastes may vary on the last one (some recipes say that bourbon is all right to use), but I think there are definite guidelines like the above.
My understanding is this was just a matter of choice. People associated the name bourbon with Kentucky so distillers in other states chose not to use it. Jack Daniels and George Dickel, for example, distill whiskey by a process that is the same as is used for distilling bourbon and they could call their product bourbon but they prefer to market their product as Tennessee whiskey.
Two things:
-
I stated that bourbon is an American whisky but internationally that distinction is through unofficial agreement not through appellation treaties cf. scotch whisky.
-
If what your saying is correct, then how come the definition of “bourbon whisky” (27 CFR 5.22(b)(1)(i)) does not say made in the United States and is distinct from “whisky distilled from bourbon mash” in 27 CFR 5.22(b)(2) which does have to be made in the United States. The are legally different whiskies as bourbon must be aged in NEW charred oak and whisky distilled from bourbon mash must be aged in USED charred oak. Also, there is no proof at storage standard for whisky distilled from bourbon mash unlike bourbon which must be stored at 125 or less proof.
Under the law, I am in Bir Tawil and produce a mash of 51% corn, produce 160 proof whisky, store it in a new charred oak barrel at 125 proof for a day and bottle it at 80 proof then I can legally sell it as “bourbon whisky” in the US.
Not in the United States. Read the Code of Federal Regulation. No ‘e’ in whisky.
Jim Beam and Jack Daniels would disagree. As would Wild Turkey, and Old Grand-Dad, all of whom spell it “Whiskey” on their labels.
But Maker’s Mark bottles “Whisky”.
Not so much…
27 CFR 5.22(L) states:
So is there a huge difference in taste between alcohol distilled from say rye and corn? I’m trying to get some sense as to how much of the taste is from how it is stored after distillation.
It all sort of tastes the same to me. I’ve tried to enjoy drinking hard liquor straight but just can’t do it. It just tastes like burning.
That’s kind of a hard question as far as mash bills go, in that there really are two types of whiskey- bourbon and rye, and some varieties of bourbon can have a high proportion of rye, and there can be rye whiskies with a high proportion of corn, since the main defining characteristic is 51% of the grain in question.
For example, MGP’s 36% rye bourbon has a grain bill like this: Corn: 60%, Rye: 36%, Barley Malt: 4%. By comparison, their 51% rye whiskey has a grain bill like this: Corn: 45%, Rye: 51%, Barley Malt: 4%. Not all that different, but one is considered bourbon, and the other rye.
But yeah, in general, it’s not hard to tell the difference between an actual rye whiskey, a high-rye bourbon, and a wheated bourbon. Rye has a sort of spicy, funky flavor to it- think rye bread w/o caraway seeds. Corn is sort of sweet-ish, and wheat is pretty much neutral.
That’s assuming that the aging is pretty much equivalent, and that’s rarely the case. If for some reason, you wanted to spend money on experimentation, you could see the differences in aging with rye and bourbon by doing the following- getting a bottle of cheap Evan Williams black label bourbon, and a bottle of Elijah Craig 18 yr single-barrel bourbon, or in the case of rye, one of each of the following rye whiskies: Bulleit Rye and George Dickel Rye. In the case of the bourbons, they’re both the same grain bill, and off the same still- they’re barreled, and then later selected to be either Elijah Craig, Evan Williams or a few others, depending on where in the rickhouse and for how long they’ve been aging. But when they barrel up the unaged spirit, they have no idea what that barrel will end up as.
Dickel Rye and Bulleit Rye are a bit more… industrial, in that MGP of Indiana (MGP = Midwest Grain Products) produces and sells a range of distillates from various grain bills (as mentioned farther up in my post), that various companies then barrel and age and sell as their own. Dickel and Bulleit ryes both start with MGP’s 95% rye whiskey, but age and treat it differently, with Dickel doing the same charcoal filtering that they do for their own Tennessee whiskey. Trust me when I say that the two ryes are surprisingly different for something starting with the same base spirit.