A Field Guide to Whisky

A mash cooker is a kind of a pressure cooker. After the corn has been milled and mixed with water, it goes into the mash cooker. When it’s done cooking, it’s cooled and rye and/or wheat are added to it. This mixture is cooked at a lower temperature and cooled down a second time. Only then is the small percentage of malted barley added.

and in doing so can create a huge variety of bourbons. Most distillers carefully keep their mash bills a secret. Not the case with Four Roses, a company that uses two different recipes: “OB,” containing 60 percent corn, 35 percent rye, and 5 percent malted barley; and “OE,” with the ratio of the same ingredients at 75 percent, 20 percent, and 5 percent.

What Is a Mash Bill?
The mash bill is a recipe showing the percentage of grains used for a specific bourbon. Distilleries often use more than one mash bill

Maker’s Mark is known for using wheat instead of rye as its flavor grain. Its mash bill is 70 percent corn, 16 percent red winter wheat, and 14 percent malted barley.

convert the starch into sugars: the wheat will make the bourbon softer and smoother, whereas rye will give the drink a spicier character. Wheat and rye are called “flavor grains,” and the corn-to-flavor-grains ratio has a huge impact on the aroma and taste of the end product.

A small portion of malted barley promotes the formation of enzymes needed to

The corn adds a fatty sweetness to the distillate and provides the “backbone” of the drink.

Bourbon is made from a mixture of grains consisting of at least 51 percent corn, with the addition of rye and/or wheat and malted barley.

land—single pot still whiskey

The Irish, credited by many as the inventors of whiskey, produce single malts as well as single grains and blends. Their mode d’emploi is similar to that of their Scottish neighbors, although they rarely use peat smoke for drying the malt. An exception to that rule is the smoky Connemara, produced at Cooley Distillery. But there is one specific category exclusively made in Ire