As in most industries these days, products adhere to an ad-hoc set of quality tiers. When you produce a whisky, hundreds of factors contribute to affect its eventual quality. Some of these, such as the quality of ingredients, width of the heart cut, quality (expense) of maturation wood, and age of blending components are controllable. Some, like the specific makeup of the distillation system and the recipe, are more or less set in stone (unless you can afford to run 10+ year-long experiments). This yields an interesting dichotomy in the world of spirits production. Some products are created to be cheap. Johnny Walker Red Label, for example, is intentionally blended to hit a specific low price-point. Sure, Diageo claims that they create a “quality” product, but if quality was the only goal, there wouldn’t be price tiers of Johnny Walker – it would all be Blue Label, and it would all be expensive. Some products, however, are of high quality through some serendipitous accident of factors. Pappy Van Winkle bourbon, for example, is almost unequaled in the world of bourbon. Don’t you think if other bourbon distillers could match the quality of Pappy, they would, at whatever cost?

The booze world isn’t the only industry structured around this idea of intentional quality tiers. Kitchen equipment, power tools, computer components… almost everything you can buy is segmented into “value” options and “quality” options. This idea stuck in my head when I was drinking coffee made from beans from a local coffee roaster. The quality was astounding, and yet just the day before I’d made downright wretched coffee – using the same procedure – from similarly packaged beans from Trader Joe’s. The major difference? Price. Go to Target, you can buy a $15 toaster, or a $100 toaster. At Sears, you can choose a $400 washing machine, or a $1400 washing machine. While the pricier one may have additional features, you can bet the big difference is in the quality and longevity of the components. See how long that $15 toaster lasts.

Of course, one can’t take a myopic view of this. Price does not necessarily equate to quality. Since many factors determine the final price (market buzz, cost of labor, cost of distribution) including the big one, economies of scale, an $80 bottle from a small craft producer may actually be of lower quality than a $50 bottle from a multinational conglomerate. It costs a lot more money, per barrel, to make a small amount of whisky at once than a large amount. This is especially true if a producer is limited by the size of stills, the availability of ingredients, and the amount of capital available to bond a warehouse for aging. Luckily for consumers, the downstream effect of making larger batches is generally a reduction in overall quality (exigencies of large-scale production require the overlooking of or inability to catch small flaws in the product), so those “small batch” whiskies are generally of higher quality than their big-batch rivals, and thus the price difference is justified.

Here’s the problem, though. A high-cost, but high-quality alternative is not always available. We had a repairman out to fix our ailing washing machine this week, and he told me something interesting. He said an older (15 year-old) model like ours would last forever with occasional repair and maintenance, while all of the newer models, including the most expensive, all fail after 5 to 10 years and can’t be repaired. Some company figured out that if it allowed enough manufacturing defects to enter the line by reducing quality controls and increasing efficiency, it would achieve two goals at once: reduction in retail cost and increase in replacement purchases. It didn’t take long for EVERY manufacturer to follow suit, leaving us with a swath of products that are guaranteed to fail, regardless of their quality tier, from TVs to toasters. The same thing happened recently in computer hard drives. A consolidation of the business in the last 5 years eliminated the two producers of consistently high-quality hard drives, leaving a market where every drive has above-average failure rates. It’s currently not possible to buy a 3+ TB internal 3.5″ hard drive with at least a 4/5 rating on Newegg.com.

It takes a big risk from an innovative company to break out of this mold. An arguable case in point: Dyson. They make some of the most expensive vacuums available – many twice the price of competitors – but they consistently top consumer advocacy ratings and customer reviews. They figured out that in a world full of breaking vacuums, people would pay top dollar for a reliable alternative. Until recently, Apple Computer has done the same thing with personal computers and mobile devices.

What does this mean for your whisky budget? The key is to identify the tiers, and set your expectations accordingly. If a whisky is targeted at a $30 price range, that’s an admission by its producer that either large-scale production or low-cost ingredients have created a sub-standard whisky that is meant either for mixing or for drinking “daily” – trading quality for cost. If a whisky is targeted at an $80 – $100 price range, though, it could be either an indication of a high-quality whisky with care, concern, and top-dollar ingredients put into its production… or it could be a money-grab by a company looking to profit from the global craze for whisky. Unless you’ve got an amazingly stocked local bar or an unlimited whisky budget, the only way to sort out the two is by reading online reviews and listening to advice from experienced friends. Don’t just read one, though – I usually check Google for two or three reviews before buying an entire bottle of an untasted whisky. In these times of escalating costs and plummeting quality (just look at The Macallan’s strategy for selling younger whisky for more money or Diageo’s Talisker 18 increases), it’s Buyer Beware for sure.

To help, check out my (somewhat outdated) list of price points. These are what I consider to be the tiers of quality available to the whisky consumer. Read with caution, though, because every day these become another few cents too low, and you MUST scale these values to match your local market. Many markets (such as Canada) are inflated across the board due to taxes, government controls, and import laws. My $30 tier may be your $50 tier.

What a cool book. If I sat down and dreamed up the perfect (almost: see below) book about whisky, I would want it to contain the following: Beautiful photography of distilleries and Scottish vistas, sturdy coffee-table book construction, pleasing layout and typography, in-depth descriptions of every major and minor distillery in the world, copious tasting notes by one of the most respected names in whisky writing today, and preamble about general whisky topics. Author Dave Broom managed to package all of the above into his seminal World Atlas of Whisky. In addition, he integrates a roadmap of distillery taste profiles that allows a reader to progress through similar expressions. Example: Liked Laphroaig 10? Try Ardbeg 10. Liked Macallan 10 (sherried)? Try Aberlour 16. Genius.

As usual with these books, my one gripe is the sparseness of information about where flavors in a certain distillery’s product come from. For example, while he talks in-depth about Dalmore’s stills and wood policy, he doesn’t even mention their process water. These are nitpicks, though, as this hardcover book is already 320 pages long, and to include every nerdy detail would have necessitated the publication of multiple tomes! My criticism, however, is totally eliminated by Dave Broom’s inclusion of tasting notes for the new-make spirit at every distillery. What a wonderful source of information! Nobody else does this, and it’s invaluable.

The books begins with a standard (though well-written) introduction to whisky, its production (with handy charts showing usual production methods for malt, grain, Irish pot-still, and American styles), and how to taste it. The ubiquitous flavor map is included. Each region, including Scotland’s many distillation regions, Ireland, Japan, the USA, and Canada begins with an overview of the styles of whisky produced there, a map of distilleries, and a bit of contextual or historical information.

Each distillery (or group of related distilleries) gets one or two pages with a few photographs, a general description with some insight into whisky production, and a handful of tasting notes including the new make and a couple of distillery standard bottlings. Popular or prolific producers of course get more attention. Information on blends and grain whiskies is minimal and independent bottlers are not covered at all, so don’t expect this text to cover all available products on the market. Scotland receives the bulk of the pages (170), The USA is covered in 38 pages, Japan in 18, Ireland in 12, Canada in 10, and the rest of the world (each country gets a page or two) in 30.

The book concludes with a flavor index (listing products that fall into each quadrant of the flavor map), a glossary, and a comprehensive index.

Of all of the whisky books that I have read, I consider this one to be the best. It is the most complete and most pleasantly arranged book, and I continue to use it as my primary source of information when researching a distillery. That makes it my “desert island” whisky book. Because it goes so far beyond dry lists of brief intangible tasting notes, it’s the first book I would recommend to anchor any whisky lover’s library. If Dave Broom’s World Atlas of Whisky were a dram, I would definitely award it with a “Must Have” rating.

White Dog, New-Make and Moonshine are among the names given to spirits made with various grains and not aged in oak. While not known for their elegance or sippability, such products can make flavorful replacements for vodka in cocktails, or shine in their own right in mixed drinks. What I like about white dog is that the experience of tasting whisky without the wood gives the whisky drinker a much better sense of the profound effect that oak aging has on the spirit. A surprising range of flavors and aromas – from vanilla and chocolate to fruits, flowers, sugars, baked goods and nuts all come from the barrel, rarely from the still. By tasting whisky without the wood, one is better able to mentally separate the flavors in aged whiskies.

I recently tried two products that gave me a good sense for where bourbon comes from. A Buffalo Trace White Dog at 57% ABV from a wheated mash (probably very similar to the mash that goes into Pappy Van Winkle) showed raw fresh corn kernels on the nose, freshly-mown grass, and… asparagus (I’m glad that disappears in the barrel!). It was mildly apple-like on the palate, with still more of those green vegetable notes. It finished with potato peelings and butane. While not exactly something that I want to relax with on a quiet evening, it was nevertheless interesting to see how the corn translates (directly), while the wheat and barley come across more as flavors I associate with vodka. The youth of the drink certainly shows through with raw green notes and weird ‘rotting’ fusel alcohol compounds that would mellow out with time and oak.

Onyx Moonshine, a new product from a small company in Manchester, Connecticut, had somewhat the opposite effect. Instead of heavy-handed corn, grass, and butane, Onyx smells and tastes chiefly of… nothing. When stretching, one can detect very slight florals in the nose, and some mint and aniseed on the palate. The finish is a bit vodka-like, but with a minor sweetness. The marketing material (for once!) is dead-on: this stuff disappears in cocktails like no vodka I’ve ever had. A little water makes it somewhat sweeter, and almost makes it worth drinking straight at room temperature. I much prefer it in cocktails, and I bet a properly-made Onyx Moonshine Martini would be fascinating. Oh, and it’s $27.

Some other available white dogs are Heaven Hill’s Trybox Series, High West Silver, Woodinville Headlong White Dog, and more.

Bourbon, although on the face of it a simple drink made only of corn, grains, water, yeast, oak, and time, and created only in the United States of America, it still has more capacity to confuse than the ancient and (to some) arcane system of nomenclature used in Scotch distribution. Of course the complexity is mainly due to multiple brands being owned by the same companies, and distilleries making whiskey by contract for other brands… and rye, despite the name, containing as much as 49% bourbon. Bourbon is made only in a small handful of distilleries, and yet is sold by a dizzying array of brands, holding companies, independent bottlers, and blenders. Despite having sampled a lot of bourbon now, and being reasonably firm in my grasp of rye-flavored vs. wheat-flavored bourbon, the difference between Tennessee Whisky and Bourbon (hint: the first is made in Tennessee!), and a reasonable expectation of flavor profiles… I still couldn’t tell you what is made where or by whom. Luckily, David at K&L recently (ok, not so recently – so sue me, I’m behind in my posting) cleared up a lot of my confusion by posting this indispensable guide to bourbon brands. While not an exhaustive list, it taught me the following:

Four Roses Distillery makes Four Roses and also distills Bulleit bourbon for Diageo. Buffalo Trace makes Buffalo Trace, Elmer T Lee, Eagle Rare, Weller, Rock Hill Farms, Blanton’s, George T. Stagg, Tom Handy Rye, Pappy Van Winkle bourbon, and Sazerac Rye. Heaven Hill makes Elijah Craig, Evan Williams, and Parker’s Heritage, and Rittenhouse Rye (which has also been made elsewhere in the past). Wild Turkey Distillery makes Wild Turkey and Russell’s Reserve. Maker’s Mark Distillery makes Maker’s Mark. (Say that three times fast). Brown-Forman makes Old Forester and a proportion of Woodford Reserve, the rest of which is made at… Woodford Reserve Distillery. Jim Beam Distilleries (there are two) make Jim Beam, Knob Creek, Booker’s, Baker’s, Old Overholt Rye and Old Grand Dad. LDI (Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana) makes High West Rye, Redemption Rye, Willett Rye, Templeton Rye, and Bulleit Rye.

Noah’s Mill, Rowan’s Creek, Pure Kentucky, Willett bourbon, Johnny Drum, Black Maple Hill, and Michter’s (all products of the Willet Family’s Kentucky Bourbon Distillers – KBD) were all sourced from various distilleries, and it’s anybody’s guess which brand comes from which distillery (or distilleries, some are definitely blends). This is of course also true of the other independent bottlers on the market, who (like Scotch independent bottlers) buy barrels from producers and market their own blends without disclosing their sources.

It’s worth remembering that although many different brands of whiskies are made on the same exact stills, the recipes (which include the mashbills, source of water, yeasts, fermentation procedures, distillation variants, cooling and cutting variants, aging and bottling strength, and more) are very different. The most illustrative example of this (for me), is the Pappy Van Winkle thing – made for many years at the old Stitzel-Weller Distillery until it was dismantled, Pappy bourbon was one-of-a-kind… until Buffalo Trace began distilling it on behalf of the Van Winkle family, using the same wheated recipe used at SW. Now, only your most jaded bourbon drinker would be able to detect the difference. Sure, there was some “secret sauce” going on at SW, but BT managed to replicate it pretty successfully, even with different stills and stillmen. Perhaps that says something about “terrior” in whiskey!

I’ve complained (bitterly and often) about the hated specter of GRAIN WHISKY and the ruinous effect that it has on our lovely, pure single malt when blended by greedy profit-seeking conglomerates in their quest to dull the palates and wash the brains of innocent bar-goers the world round. *cough* Turns out that’s only half-true.

Grain whisky is a distilled spirit made from corn, wheat, or unmalted barley. Like all distillates, ‘grain whisky’, when it emerges from the stills, is a rough and largely flavorless clear spirit of very high ABV (upwards of 70% to 80%, depending on the type of distillation). It’s effectively vodka, and tastes like it. The only difference at this point between malt whisky double-distilled in a copper pot still, and grain whisky distilled in a column (or Coffey) still is that the malt whisky has reacted chemically with the copper in the still (and undergone reflux due to the shape of the still) to produce volatile compounds and esters which render it more subtly flavored. It’s not until these spirits spend a period of time in oak barrels that they begin to take on the properties that we associate with the brown spirit: whisky. In the case of malt, a bare three years will render it light and flavorful and only a little bit “raw” or “young”-tasting. Twelve years will make it robust and flavorful, and eighteen or more years will make it sublime.

The case is more or less the same with grain whisky, with one difference: It takes a lot longer in an oak barrel to make the stuff palatable! Respected bloggers and writers have set this age around 17 years. Around that point, the grain whisky becomes ethereal and sweet, and is able to balance malt in a blend to the benefit of both components and the enrichment of the whole. Herein lies the misconception. When you order a blended scotch whisky at a bar, you are not getting 17 year-old grain blended expertly with malt. You are getting a three year-old grain blended (to maximize profit) with a six to ten year-old malt. The blend has been carefully calculated to both save money on expensive malt whisky and to standardize the taste of ‘scotch whisky’ – not too light, not too sweet, and not too smoky. Not too interesting, either.

I ordered a sample of single-grain whisky from Master of Malt, an awesome UK retailer/bottler that bottles tons of 30ml samples of just about everything they sell – making it an excellent resource for someone who just wants to try a bunch of whiskies before committing to full bottle purchases. Here’s what I thought of the 12 year-old North British single-grain scotch whisky from Signatory (distilled in 1997, bottled at 45% ABV in 2009):

Nose: Pine needles and pine sap. Eucalyptus. Underneath is a layer of marshmallow and fresh hay. Very light and herbal.

Palate: Creamy! Very milky texture. Little mouth burn. Flavors emerge of spun sugar, freshly-mown grass, homemade marshmallow, and malted milk.

Finish: Medium-long. Sugary, like blue cotton candy melting on your tongue. Somewhat one-dimensional.

Overall: For twelve years of age, there isn’t much complexity. The exceptionally creamy mouthfeel was a plus, as was the interesting herbal note on the nose (which never reasserted itself in the mouth). Flavor-wise, there isn’t much going on beyond sugary sweetness. A very interesting experience, though, to see what single-grain is all about.

Grain whisky (aged 12 years and carefully selected, in this case) smells herbal and floral, is very creamy/milky in texture, and tastes like various kinds of processed sugar. This makes sense when compared to some of the better blended whiskies I’ve had, which always had an unmistakable creamy texture, and were generally sweeter than equivalent malts. The lesson here is clear: that we shouldn’t turn our noses up at a blended whisky if and only if its grain component has been aged sufficiently to remove rough traces of paint-thinner and vodka. If you’re paying less than $40 a bottle, you’re asking for the cheap stuff.

Note: As pointed out by a reader in the comments, the term ‘grain whisky’ is very misleading. In the Scotch Whisky industry, the term (as defined by the SWA – Scotch Whisky Association) means a whisky (aged in oak) distilled from any combination of cereal grains. If only malted barley is used, then it can be referred to as ‘malt whisky’. A ‘blended whisky’ contains both, in any proportion.