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bourbon versus single malt scotch differences


racer
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I've been trying to find a bourbon like scotch, but I am going to concede failure. No matter how sweet the flavors, there is that peat reek in the scotch, that comes out. Now, that I have been drinking bourbon, the more drastic the differences seem. I'm going to look into Irish whiskey, there are single malted Irish that is not peated. So, let's see what happens!

mark smile.gif

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I have tried Bushmills 10 Year, and after drinking bourbon, It jsut kinda tastes like a weak blended whiskey. . . Not worth paying Single Malt prices IMHO.

TomC

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Logically, what you say makes sense. Irish and scotch are only working with malted barley, but bourbon and even rye is made up of a mashbill. I going to check out Glengoyne, which isn't peated. I'm just sad, since I got into bourbon, my Scotch bottles are going untouched.

mark h. grin.gif

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>In reply to:

>I'm just sad, since I got into bourbon, my Scotch bottles are going untouched.<

As they should be... Untouched wink.gif

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While barley is the base of all authentic (pot still) Scotch and Irish whisky, a majority of the barley in traditional Irish pot still whiskey is raw grains, ie. unmalted. This gives quite a different taste compared to a 100% malted barley mash. Some people speak of the "hard" or "brittle" effect of the unmalted barley in Irish. Some say it gives a leather or wax-like scent. So in this sense, Irish whiskey is composed of "two" grains. In traditional rye whiskey, the rye element was unmalted (just as the corn in bourbon is unmalted, they are both malted in the mash by the malted barley), so there is an analogy there to U.S. practice. Jameson's Irish whiskey is 50% pot still, 50% grain whiskey (the latter similar to the Scottish column still whiskey). Power's, another big seller, is said to be 70% pot still. So buying these reasonably priced Irish blends is a good way to taste the unmalted barley effect, ie. these whiskeys don't depend for their keynote taste on malted barley. To that degree I'd say they offer a complexity (although tasting different) analagous to fine bourbon and rye with their mixed mashbills.

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And if you like the malted/unmalted combination, yet want to avoid blends, you can go with Redbreast. It is a 12yo Pure Pot Still Irish Whiskey. tongue.gif

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