My Woodford Reserve Visit

I was interested in this statement by One Cube:

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I guess I'm just deeply disappointed because I *REALLY* love the the potstill flavors that Irish whiskey has, so I was expecting WR to shine.

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I once read on a scotch website that "pot still" had a different meaning in Ireland than it did in Scotland. In Scotland it referred to the type of still in which the whiskey was made. In Ireland it also referred to whiskey made from both malted and unmalted barley. I can't find that website, but I found this one:

www.potstill.com/irish.html

It makes this statement: "Traditional potstill Irish whiskey, as in Redbreast 12YO and Green Spot, is made of a mixture of malted and unmalted barley. Cooley`s pot still whiskey, as in Tyrconnell, is single malt distilled in a pot still. Both uses of the term potstill are legally correct."

So maybe what One Cube likes is the flavor profile in Irish whiskey that comes from both malted and unmalted barley distilled in a pot still.

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So maybe what One Cube likes is the flavor profile in Irish whiskey that comes from both malted and unmalted barley distilled in a pot still.

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Quite possibly. Actually, all I really know about "pot still character" is that I seem to enjoy the Irishes that claim to have lots of it vs. ones that don't (ie. Redbreast, Powers, Jameson 1780).

The reason I was looking forward to potstilled bourbon was I've always understood the potstill to be fairly inefficient vs. a column...so you'll get more of the original grain/wort/mash/whatever flavor. From what I understand though, most modern column stills for bourbonmaking are tuned to closely replicate the potstill results (was it Chuck that said this?)

"Inefficiency" is just a matter of distillation proof and American straight whiskey, by law, has to be distilled at less than 160 proof. With today's technology, the intrinsic differences in the product itself between pot-distilled and column-distilled whiskey are pretty subtle and subjective.

I said it (or was one of us who did). Continuous stills can be adjusted in their operation, e.g. by using reflux or not, to produce a less refined spirit which approximates to one produced in a pot still although there are still differences: some flavoring compounds (collectively called congeners) are not produced in the column still however it is manipulated. I was tasting Woodford again recently and the heavier, more direct character from the pot still is certainly there. In Irish it sometimes is an oilier character than anything from a continuous process but in Woodford it is more a mineral-like taste, I think this is what Randy was noticing as the dry and somewhat bitter elements. This is precisely a robust distillery character, I have noticed it in medium-aged and younger scotch too. The balance is slightly different in some of the Woodfords I have tried but all since batch 90 show this mineral edge and to my mind it adds a lot to the bourbon's character (probably it would change further if allowed to age longer, changing into more fragrant and estery notes, however some of that is there now, the violets some have noticed). By the way while traditional Irish whiskey is pot-stilled (3 times), the term as used in Irish practice also means adding some unmalted barley to the mash. The latter practice is not followed in Scotland. Also, Scotch pot stills are generally much smaller than those in Ireland.

Gary