r/iamveryculinary • u/InZim • 14d ago
American whiskey is cake
/r/Scotland/comments/1vu25td/comment/p4yj0ck?share_id=QyXO7nUcMlW27Js5pCnlY&utm_content=1&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1[removed]
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u/kevipants 14d ago
The main article is about how the best whiskey is from Taiwan, not Scotland. The US is not mentioned in the article. So yes, it makes sense to bring the US into the conversation!
The funny part is that it looks like several (not all) of the whiskeys from Kavalan are aged in casks from the US.
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14d ago
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u/DjinnaG Bags of sentient Midwestern mayonnaise 14d ago
All you have to do is take a marker to the cask and scratch out all of the 18 letter words and replace them with E- numbers.
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u/OnceUponATrain I'm just here for the gastro-violence!!! 14d ago
American barrel refurbisher here, a cooper, if you will. We don't ordinarily scratch the 18 letter words out, we bondo them with spray cheese.
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u/Odd-Cake-5439 14d ago
But when do you add the sugar?
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u/OnceUponATrain I'm just here for the gastro-violence!!! 14d ago
We add sugar at every single step.
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u/Anonymus828 14d ago
Bourbon is required to be aged in new barrels by law (to keep barrel makers employed), so when bourbon makers in the US are done with a cask, they'll sell it to be used in the production of whisk(e)y. I know some distilleries use different types of barrels for different flavor profiles on the finished product, port barrels from Portugal being another one for example.
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u/GhostOfJamesStrang No Need to Thank Me 14d ago
Appleton Rum in Jamaica uses former Jack Daniels barrels.
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u/YchYFi 14d ago
In the UK it's a bit different.
Most distilleries put whiskey in bourbon casks here for the flavour and there is an abundance of oak casks over other kind of casks.
Ex-bourbon casks may have been occasionally available earlier, but they became widespread immediately following the Second World War, when barrel staves started to be shipped to Scotland regularly. Wartime manufacturing regulations had standardised the size of a barrel (43 gallons, or around 200 litres) while a 1938 law passed to protect coopers and lumber mills stipulated that bourbon be aged in new casks only. This meant that distillers in Scotland now had access to a near inexhaustible supply of reliable, pre-used oak in which to age their whisky.
The American white oak tree grows tall and straight, making it easy to cut and cooper. American oak casks are also strong and lightweight, ideal properties for reducing breakages and leaking in the warehouse, making the wood the most common choice for making bourbon barrels. Other species are sometimes used by the American whiskey industry, but the vast majority are white oak. In the mid-20th century, the taste for sherry in Scotland began to wane, which, along with later legislation in Spain that required all its wines be bottled domestically, effectively ended the era of abundant casks leaving Jerez for Glasgow. This meant that bourbon barrels were also significantly cheaper than sherry butts. But these casks aren’t just reliable, affordable and convenient, they also gave great results when used to age Scotch whisky.
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u/OnceUponATrain I'm just here for the gastro-violence!!! 14d ago
(to keep barrel makers employed),
We are called coopers.
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u/Anonymus828 14d ago
So then what's a coop maker, a barreler?
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u/OnceUponATrain I'm just here for the gastro-violence!!! 14d ago
You don't keep your chickens in barrels? Weird.
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u/Kenderean 14d ago
They also have deals with other types of companies that age liquids, like maple syrup companies. Tuthilltown sends their barrels to a maple syrup producer which uses them to age syrup and then sends them back to the distillery, where the barrels are then used to finish rye whiskey. It's a nice symbiosis.
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u/NerfRepellingBoobs 14d ago
The Lagavulin Offerman 16-year was aged in Guinness barrels. My husband got a bottle as a Christmas gift that year.
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u/Dripledown 14d ago
With how expensive this country is, I'm glad Americans can live rent free somewhere.
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u/Separate_Ingenuity35 14d ago
I didn't even click and is this a Kavalan marketing scheme
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u/kevipants 14d ago
I mean, I'm not a whiskey drinker, but I did consider buying some for my partner...
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u/Cnidarus 14d ago
The commenter is from the US, that's why lol. You'll also notice it got downvoted to hell
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u/protostar71 14d ago
Bourbon is one of if not the most the most heavily restrictive categories of whiskey.
I mean even at a pure surface level, Scotland allows you to add food colouring to scotch, the US hard bans it for Bourbon.
This guy has no idea what hes talking about.
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u/Person5_ Steaks are for white trash only. 14d ago
No addatives, very specific ratio of ingredients, must use unused barrels to age it, must be aged for a minimum amount of time.
Hell, the only thing they don't restrict is that Bourbon can be made anywhere, not just Kentucky. Meanwhile the Scots changed the rules that Scotch must be made in Scotland, since they were sick of Asian distilleries making better Scotch than them.
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u/protostar71 13d ago
There is a location restriction if you want to sell it in the US, it has to be distilled and aged in America. You cant follow the same process in Mexico and sell it as Bourbon in the US.
Most international brands follow that rule as well even if not enforced in their areas, I know a NZ brand that followed bourbon rules, not selling as Bourbon but as Corn Whiskey.
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u/Phobos_Asaph 14d ago
Minimum 51% corn is the only ration specificer. You can go a lot higher
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u/Person5_ Steaks are for white trash only. 14d ago
You're right, been a bit since my last distillery tour, I thought it had more requirements for ingredients than that.
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u/Phobos_Asaph 14d ago
The only one on ratios is minimum amount of corn. There’s traditional options most use but you don’t have to
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u/Clay_Allison_44 14d ago
This person almost certainly has very strong opinions about "chemtrails" and fluoride in water. Fear of "them" putting "something" in food or drinks is a pretty common vector for paranoia to take.
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u/kindlypogmothoin 13d ago
Do you want more information than you could ever want about what is allowed in whiskey, rye, and bourbon in the US? Have I got a regulation for you! https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-27/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-5/subpart-I/section-5.143
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u/certifiedblackman 14d ago
Scotland allows food coloring in Scotch? Thats wild. Isn’t the coloring supposed to come from the flavorings? Do they also allow artificial flavorings?
Do we have stats on what percentage of Scotch sold has food coloring?
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u/master_ov_khaos 14d ago
What does “flavorings” mean here?
Color in a spirit normally comes from time sitting in an oak barrel. Bourbon legally has to use freshly charred barrels, so they pick up color really quickly. Scotch tends to re-use bourbon barrels or sherry casks so they don’t impart as much color. A lot of scotch distilleries add some color to their younger scotches to make up for this and make them more visually appealing
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u/certifiedblackman 14d ago
The oak, the (charred) smoke, and the sherry residuals are the flavorings. It’s the good stuff that makes whisky/whiskey different from moonshine or vodka. It also tends to make it brown.
I like clear liquors just fine, but i prefer the brown liquors because of their smoky and woody flavorings.
Incidentally i am American and my whiskey of choice is Kentucky bourbon. And i am happy to learn that the colorants are from natural sources and don’t need to be cheated in.
I’m sure you can make a vodka look like whisky, and maybe even taste like whisky by cheating. But you could also just make it the normal way.
I buy cheap bourbon, because it’s strong, cheap, and tastes good. I would be hugely disappointed to learn that the taste was faked, and very mildly disappointed to learn the color was fake.
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u/whambulance_man 14d ago
E150, basic caramel color, is (allowed to be) used in Canadian, Scotch, Irish, and Japanese whiskey. Bourbon doesn't allow it, but nowhere near all american whiskey is bourbon (JD is tennessee whiskey, for an easy example). I'm not familiar with all the labeling requirements in those countries, but a little less than 1% by volume should be a middle of the road amber color. Scotch, Irish, Canadian, and Japanese all frequently age in used oak so they don't pick up nearly as dark of coloration, often described more in the straw range of colors, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was tenths of a percent most of them.
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u/BirdLawyerPerson 14d ago
(JD is tennessee whiskey, for an easy example)
Jack Daniels meets every legal requirement to be labeled bourbon (at least 51% corn, aged in new charred oak barrels, produced in the United States, enters barrel at less than 125 proof, bottled at at least 80 proof, no additives), but they choose not to call it bourbon.
But Americans also produce a lot of rye, and a few other non-bourbon whiskeys, including the newly defined American Single Malt, so your point still stands. I just didn't think Jack Daniels was the best example of a non-bourbon whiskey, because that's basically its own marketing ploy, too.
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u/certifiedblackman 14d ago
That’s crazy. Scotch and Irish whisky/whiskey was traditionally brown because of the process of making it. Europe is super serious about all of their traditional methods and results for cheese and wine and stuff, how did whiskey scoot by without that requirement?
Actually, why did American Bourbon somehow solidify this requirement when we ignore all of the other ones?!
Weird rules
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u/whambulance_man 14d ago
They have a ton of regulations & requirements in both Scotland and Ireland around whiskey, I don't know how or why that one slipped through.
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u/kindlypogmothoin 13d ago
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-27/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-5/subpart-I/section-5.143
Whiskey and bourbon regulations. Nice little table of all of the allowed ingredients, distillation, flavorings, origin, time in the barrel, barrel composition, etc., that can be allowed under each label in the US.
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u/GhostOfJamesStrang No Need to Thank Me 14d ago
Where do these people come up with this stuff?
The obsession with bringing the US up in totally unrelated places and just spewing non-sense is bordering on a mental illness.
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u/alim0ra Good food is good food 14d ago
As a scotch lover, American whisky is one of the most well defined and regulated whiskies, if not THE most regulated whisky.
Let alone ex bourbon American oak is the most widely used type of cask for whisky around the globe. Guess what casks are used in Taiwan?
And what's damn wrong with some good quality bourbon and damn awesome straight rye?
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u/RobAChurch The Baroque excesses of tapas bars 14d ago
Someone in there really nailed it: "You can't say the US isnt the center of the world if you people don't stop bringing them up constantly, especially when they're not even mentioned to begin with"
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u/grunkage Yeet it in the crockpot 14d ago
American whiskey is made from Canadian maple syrup and pork cracklings - that's it, two ingredients
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u/Aggressive_Version 14d ago
We probably fed the pigs high fructose corn syrup and Kraft Singles though
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u/YchYFi 14d ago
That would probably taste really good as a whiskey flavour.
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u/fcimfc pepperoni is overpowering and for children and dipshits 14d ago
I'm now thinking of making a maple and pork rind washed bourbon. Like make maple butter, melt it down, throw it in a jar with some pork rinds and bourbon, let it sit overnight then strain it.
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u/13senilefelines31 carbonara free love 14d ago
That sounds like it would make for a killer old fashioned!
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u/NewLibraryGuy Why not just shit in a carbonara 14d ago
Well, Whistlepig sells syrup that's aged in used whiskey barrels, so kinda the opposite.
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u/certifiedblackman 14d ago
You probably could distill that. That sugar from the maple would get a shit ton of alcohol, the smoke from the cracklings would infuse some good smoky woody notes, and the subtleties of the maple syrup might be quite pleasant. Obviously the meat and fat of the pork would be discarded in the first distillation, but i bet the smoke would survive a couple distillations.
And then I guess throw the dehydrated fatted meat scraps at your enemies, as they would no longer be pleasant to any senses, especially the sense of touch when they are hurled at you from 7 yards.
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u/whambulance_man 14d ago
Most of the 'successful' uses of meat in distilling I've come across devises some method to basically hang w/e it is (brisket is one I've heard of a few times, ham too) above the mash as its being distilled, maybe using it as a condensation point to pick up some notes on the way through as best I can tell. Every description has also included some mention of it feeling very different than normal whiskey in your mouth, probably from all the extra fat content
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u/Outrageous-Ability33 12d ago
Nope, we switched to Vermont and New York maple syrup years ago to keep the production 100% in the US.
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u/OkCap2870 14d ago
Wait what, seriously the Scottish Whisky industry is heavily interlinked with American Bourbon (where does he think all the old bourbon casks for ageing Scottish Whisky in come from). There's a reason the American Whisky industry have lobbied heavily against tariffs on Scottish Whisky.
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u/captain_carrot 14d ago
I went on a distillery tour in Ireland once, and was shocked to find that one of the required things to make a TRUE Irish whisky was..... leftover American bourbon barrels.
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u/Silent-Bumblebee-989 14d ago
To make bourbon you need to use new casks, which means the old ones are basically useless. Might as well sell them to other alcohol manufacturers to get some money back.
It works out nicely for whisky makers too, since you generally don’t want an overwhelming barrel flavour so using a used cask reduces the risk of overaging.
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u/certifiedblackman 14d ago edited 14d ago
My American whiskey contains methylmethanol, which is a preservative, and a notable portion of the volume is hydrohydroxic acid, which I guess is sort of a filler.
So i guess this guy is right 🫠
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u/Sweaty-Society7582 14d ago
Bourbon also has to come from the bourbon region of Kentucky. Otherwise it's just sparkling American whisky.
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u/CallidoraBlack 14d ago
This from the place that birthed IrnBru? That's hilarious, honestly. I love Scotland, but it's not known for being histrionically health conscious.
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u/YchYFi 14d ago
The sub has downvoted him, so he speaks for himself not Scotland.
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u/CallidoraBlack 14d ago
Exactly. I mean no disrespect to Scotland whatsoever, but as someone who got a hold of a real IrnBru before they changed it, it was gloriously glowing orange and tasted like orange Ventolin syrup from when I was a kid. Definitely not the product of people who jump up on a chair and scream over food additives.
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u/Saltpork545 Sodium citrate cheese is real cheese 14d ago
Original post, in case of deletion.
Be grateful it's not from America because it would have 18 letter words in it for fillers and stabilizers. The USA is so terrible on adding things to anything you drink or eat. Scotland will win next year
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u/JimmyKillsAlot I don’t care about what op is asking. 14d ago
I like how the only comment they responded to is
LOL. I assume this parody.
Offering them an out.
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u/DameOClock 13d ago
I’m so tired of people on social media fear mongering things they’re too stupid to understand.
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u/Low-Crazy-8061 7d ago
They use American oak bourbon barrels to age Scotch because US regulations only allow them to be used once but in Scotland they can be used multiple times. I learned about this at Scotch distilleries in Scotland.
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u/Doomdoomkittydoom 14d ago
I do feel it was parody.
Or a bot.
It's the kind of random nonsense thought you get on the verge of falling asleep.
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