An Absurdly Complete Guide to Understanding Whiskey (via Eater.com)

The folks over at Eater.com have put together a comprehensive guide to Whiskey.  Who knew that things like barrel location in a warehouse could so drastically affect the aging process.

Also, find out what “staves” are and why they’re crucial to developing the deep and complex flavor of whiskey.

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Everything anyone could ever want to know about whiskey and why it tastes the way it does.

What really makes whiskey taste like whiskey? If flavor truly just came down to a simple formula of distilling ratios of grains plus time spent in a barrel, then there wouldn’t be an infinite range of tastes, profiles and qualities. There’s a world of whiskey geekdom to explore, all of the finer points which turn that basic math into the highly complex art and science of whiskey production.

Aging & Warehousing

Age is just a number, and the amount of time spent in a barrel is far from the only factor the affects a whiskey’s final flavor.

Barrels aging in Scotland. Shutterstock: Pawel Kowalcyk

Temperature & Weather

The external climate where a whiskey is warehoused greatly impacts how rapidly it ages, how much interaction it has with the wood from the barrel, and how much evaporation takes place. The hotter the temperature, the more alcohol penetrates the wood of the barrels, and the thirstier the angel’s share. Add humidity to the heat, and evaporation quickly escalates.

The seasonal temperature fluctuation in, say, Kentucky allows barrels to “breathe” in and out—contracting in the cool of the winter, and expanding in the heat of the summer—whereas the steadier weather in Scotland offers far more year-round climate consistency. “We have a very mild, temperate climate in Speyside,” explains The Macallan brand ambassador Craig Bridger. “You don’t have the extreme swings of temperature you get in Kentucky. There’s not a lot of variance for us.”

Masataka Taketsuru, founder of Japan’s Nikka Whisky, chose the location of his Yoichi distillery in the Hokkaido Prefecture because of the region’s similar weather conditions to Scotland. The Father of Japanese Whisky had spent time living and learning in Scotland, and had a clear vision for how he would craft his own whisky, on his own island, halfway around the world.

Read more here.