Whiskey or Whisky? The Technical File - Part 2

The Irish Whiskey Technical File (see yesterday's article) takes no sides on the spelling question. Label it Irish Whiskey or Irish Whisky, according to your like or dislike of the letter e.

I think that's a mistake.

Yes, I know that up until little more than three decades ago, the non-e variant still had some currency in Ireland (Paddy Whisky was the last holdout). But then the one remaining distiller on the island standardised on whiskey and every Irish whiskey brand since then has embraced the convention.

It is a wonderful, accidental gift to marketers that should not be lightly relinquished. Those in the distilling business forget, I think, how mysterious and intimidating whiskey is to the uninitiated. What's it made from? How do you turn grain into alcohol? What does an age statement mean? What's the difference between bourbon and scotch? And so on.

The one tidbit of knowledge that people around the world find easy to latch on to is that Scotland spells it whisky but Ireland prefers whiskey. The to e or not to e thing appears in myriad forms in the headlines of hundreds of articles. It immediately establishes that Irish whiskey is somehow distinct from scotch. And it is a beachhead from which the curious can strike out to explore a new landscape.

There are already those in the Irish distilling game plotting to erase this fortunate distinction. Peter Mulryan of Blackwater Distillery has declared for the opposing side. Everything he says in that article is correct. Yes, it's pure marketing. But that's more than enough reason to preserve the e.

On a related topic, I would like to commend the hidden hand who added this line to the Technical File:

The customary term for the plural of Irish whiskey is "Irish whiskeys".

Yes! Not whiskies. That would be the plural of whisky. This shouldn't be news to anyone; we are just following the most routine conventions of English. But it's regularly stuffed up by all the distilleries in press releases and other marketing bumph. The Irish Times gets it wrong. The Irish Whiskey Society gets it wrong.

I often see both whiskies and whiskeys in the same piece, which proves it's not a conscious choice, just carelessness.

So, choose whisky or whiskey when you pick up your pen. But whichever one you select would you please confine yourself to the correct, corresponding plural. Thanks!

Irish Whiskey: The Technical File - Part 1

Until now we've been making do with the Irish Whiskey Act of 1980 to know what is and isn't Irish whiskey. It has the merit of being a quick read but it comes from an era when there was only one distilling company on the whole island and we weren't shifting much of the wet stuff. Not much nit-picking over definitions back then.

Today we have dozens of operating and aspiring distillers, and Irish whiskey is coining it globally. We have something worth protecting and nurturing in a competitive world, and that means shoring up the legal underpinnings.

The EU is useful here. It confers Geographical Indication (GI) status on many of Europe's distinctive regional food and drink products. A GI provides a means to protect against knock-offs in other member countries and, via trade agreements, in much of the rest of the world.

Irish whiskey's GI status comes with a requirement for a "technical file" that details terminology, ingredients and production practices. One of the first tasks of the Irish Whiskey Association - formed just last year - was to hammer out this document with input from industry players. The Department of Agriculture adds the imprimateur of the Irish state and submits the file to the EU.

I've been reading this recently completed technical file and have picked out some highlights. There's plenty to say so I'll spread it over a few articles.

Disclaimer: this is my interpretation of the new rules. I'm open to correction.

What isn't new

In one sense, nothing has changed. If you follow the recipe in the 1980 Irish Whiskey Act you will end up with something you are still entitled to call Irish whiskey.

What is new

Various sub-categories of Irish whiskey have been defined for the first time. These are already in general use and are broadly understood, but the definitions include some welcome clarifications. Let's have a look...

Irish Pot Still Whiskey

Whiskey terminology is often confusing but "Irish pot still whiskey" seems particularly perverse. It's not simply Irish whiskey made in a pot still. If it were, then malt whiskey would be pot still whiskey. But it isn't. Cooley tried that one on a few years ago, to general disapproval.

There was a half-hearted legal definition up until 1980 but it's so general it's neither very useful, nor very accurate.

Midleton is the only distillery currently bottling pot still whiskey and is also heir to some of the great pot still producing distilleries of former years so the new definition no doubt owes much to their knowledge of both current and historic practice.

We now know that pot still whiskey must contain a minimum of 30% malted barley, and a minimum of 30% unmalted barley. Up to 5% can be other cereals "such as" oats and rye.

5% seems low to me but I don't think this stifles innovation since you can use whatever grain mashbill you like (within the terms of the 1980 Act) and still call it Irish whiskey. Just not necessarily Irish Pot Still Whiskey.

Irish Pot Still Whiskey is batch distilled "usually in large pot stills". I don't know why they bothered with this qualification, since it doesn't preclude small stills. It makes a supposedly neutral document look a little Midleton-skewed as "large stills contribute to a unique range of reflux ratios that lead to the formation of a distinct flavour and aroma profile in the spirit". A pre-emptive dig at new, smaller competitors?

I expected a little more clarity on still type here because some of the new producers have apparently been getting the stink eye over their choice of a hybrid still (a flexible design with a very short column mounted over a pot). The technical document is silent on this matter.

Now here's a surprise: pot still spirit is not entirely distilled in pot stills! The technical document has to describe actual practice and it turns out that the column still enjoys a minor walk-on part in this sub-category. The residues left behind after pot distillation may contain alcohol. A column still can efficiently reclaim that alcohol, which can be used to augment a subsequent pot distillation. It sounds like a pragmatic measure to improve the energy efficiency of the whole process, and reduce waste. I'm all for that.

The file allows for double or triple distillation and, while it notes that the malted barley used currently is unpeated, it does not prohibit the use of peated malt in a pot still mash.

Irish Malt Whiskey

No surprises here. 100% malted barley is specified, peated or unpeated. For some reason the malt comes from "dedicated malting companies", which hardly seems essential. I reckon that statement will be falsified by at least one of the new distilleries malting its own barley.

Irish Grain Whiskey

We discover that grain whiskey may include no more than 30% malted barley (it always has some, to provide the necessary enzymes). It also includes whole unmalted cereals, usually maize, wheat or barley.

It's distilled entirely in column stills, which may comprise either two or three columns.

That encompasses pretty much all the grain whiskey currently made in Ireland. Except for one component of Jameson Black Barrel that gets a first pass through a pot followed by another through two columns. Jameson describes this in marketing as a small batch grain whiskey. If they ever bottle it on its own, they won't be able to label it Irish Grain Whiskey.

Irish Blended Whiskey

This is a blend of two or more of the preceding three types of whiskey. No proportions are mandated.

The most interesting implication of this definition is that it relegates Writers Tears and certain Irishman bottlings to the blended category. The typical blend is deliberately lightened with grain whiskey but these combine pot still and malt whiskey only. That implies more of a flavour punch so it feels slightly unfair to class them as blends.

The Curse of Accessibilty

Is Irish whiskey taken seriously? Not according to Mark Reynier, speaking to The Spirits Business recently. He's the guy converting a former brewery in Waterford city to a whiskey distillery.

“I don't think people take Irish whiskey seriously, because there isn't anything with which to take it seriously. It's easy doing accessible stuff, but there isn't a great deal of mind-fuckery going on; it's all just pretty simplistic stuff." 

“Our aim is the put some meat on the bones and actually produce some serious whiskey.” 

“It gives me the opportunity to challenge Pernod Ricard in Ireland and create a significant Irish whiskey brand with a whole lot of extra credibility that sometimes is missing from big companies.”

There's plenty there I disagree with and I'm inclined - with a nod to Samuel Johnson - to slap a bottle of Redbreast 21yo on the table and declare: "I refute it thus".

I'll agree with him about one thing though: Irish whiskey has a perception problem. And not just among our foreign comrades. Here's Bono, doing a bit of  soul-searching over U2's last album:

"...the album should have had more of the energy of the musicians and those who inspired it... a bit more anarchy, a bit more punk. We didn't want a pastiche of the era so we put all those 70s and early eighties influence in the juicer and a blend emerged... more like an Irish whiskey than a single malt."

Like many whiskey drinkers in Ireland and elsewhere, Bono is using single malt as a synonym for both scotch and quality whiskey, and as an antonym for Irish whiskey. I'm not singling out Bono; this usage is common in Ireland. The news has yet to trickle out that we produce our own quality single malts, along with single pot stills that can stand toe-to-toe with anything from Scotland.

View image | gettyimages.com

I think this lack of regard stems from the Irish whiskey industry's own marketing script. It's that word that damns with faint praise: accessible. Mark Reynier used it pejoratively above but we routinely introduce our own whiskey as "easy-drinking, approachable, accessible".

It sounds like a positive attribute but it's really code for "not peated like that dreadful scotch". There are smooth, sweet, unpeated Scottish whiskies but if you are not into sucking on chimneys you are playing Russian roulette when you order blindly from a scotch menu.

Even Connemara, "Ireland's peaty whiskey", is only lightly so, and is a sweet, gently smoky malt with wide appeal.

The "accessibility" of Irish whiskey is a historical accident. Nothing mandates the general exclusion of peat from Irish whiskey. Triple-distillation sometimes gets equal billing for upping the smooth-factor but that's not a requirement either. Cooley's range has always been double-distilled, for example.

The accessibility tag served a purpose, which was to shift huge quantities of blended whiskeys. Now that we are trying to showcase the best of non-blended Irish spirits, it's a millstone.

The industry went through this before when Irish whiskey became a kitchen ingredient reserved for making Irish coffee. What seemed like a great wheeze for flogging bottles hobbled subsequent efforts to expand the market.

The time has come to stop defining Irish whiskey by what it isn't. It can stand on its own merits.

"Well, Mr Media Person, it's because Irish whiskey is smoother, sweeter, more approachable..."

Whoa, hold your horses, there! This is what's creating the perception that Irish whiskey is scotch without the intensity and excitement. Let's try that one more time...

"It's because we have been making whiskey in this country longer than anyone else so we know what we are doing. Irish whiskey starts with our grain and water and is only bottled after years spent quietly maturing in oak casks. It's a process that has been carefully refined over many centuries. 

"Irish whiskey is rich with aromas and flavours - spices and herbs, leather and tobacco, flowers and fruits. It can smell of the forest, or the sea, or the Christmas pudding of your childhood. You could spend a lifetime exploring Irish whiskey and never tire of its infinite variety. 

"Becoming acquainted with Irish whiskey is an exciting journey that the rest of the world is eager to discover. And we can't wait to share it with them."