“When Woodford came out with their rye whiskey,” says Mihalich, “they on-purpose didn’t make it much different from their bourbon, because they were trying to attract bourbon drinkers to rye.” Because… science?Īdding to the confusion is the chemistry of rye, which contains many of the same cellulose compounds as the oak used to age whiskey. You want to have the versatility in products for them to explore and discover.” “Millennials like trying new things, tasting new things, want to feel special and unique and thoughtful. “Marketers in spirits talk a lot about the Millennial consumer,” says Marianne Eaves, the former master distiller at Castle & Key who now runs a thriving consulting practice. The major whiskey brands’ expressions of rye often have more to do with marketing than aesthetics. Mashbill is only one of 10 or 20 decisions that relate to the final flavor.” Novelty sells “What doesn’t follow is that is going to be expressed in the final product in a way that is strong enough that you’re going to pick it up. “The chemistry of rye is different from the chemistry of corn or wheat or malt,” says Nicole Austin, General Manager and Distiller at George Dickel. “You can’t tell the difference,” says Bryson, “because there’s a hell of a lot of rye in your bourbon.” Lahne, “it is possible for a 2% difference in mashbill to tip a whiskey from one category into the other”, and it is not possible for even the most discerning tasters to consistently recognize such a small difference. The rest were blends of both corn and rye, inevitably exhibiting attributes of both. Lahne’s selection of what he calls “commercial” whiskies used in the study contain just one with no corn ( Bulleit Rye) and one with no rye ( Maker’s Mark). Lahne’s contention that bourbon and rye are indistinguishable, there is a lesson hidden in the study. “When people taste our whiskey, they do see a very stark difference from bourbon.”Īnd, finally, Colin Blake, who teaches distilling at the Distilled Spirits Epicenter in Louisville, rejected the premise with a barrel-strength sound bite aimed at one of Lahne’s collaborators, whose name is-no kidding-Tom Collins: “I don’t trust whiskey information from a guy named after a gin drink.” Never mind a gin drink that is said to be born out of an elaborate practical joke. “I would obviously dispute that,” says Herman Mihalich, founder and distiller of Dad’s Hat Rye. Other whiskey partisans had similar reactions. There are a lot of different factors and I don’t think it could be simply evaluated.” “I was going to say that’s nonsense,” he says, “but I won’t go that strong. He had no idea his writing had been quoted in the study and received the news with good-natured disbelief. Bryson lives in Pennsylvania and has, it’s fair to say, a fondness for the state’s native spirit. Lew Bryson, the author of Whiskey Master Class and Tasting Whiskey, is quoted in the study as an example of the conventional wisdom that bourbon and rye are discernibly different. It was nice to see my suspicion confirmed.” “As someone who buys and drinks a lot of whiskey,” says Lahne from his office at Virginia Tech University, “I personally thought the difference wasn’t large. Lahne published the results in the Journal of Food Science with a title only an academic could love: “Bourbon and Rye Whiskies are Legally Distinct but Are Not Discriminated by Sensory Descriptive Analysis”. And what those impressions added up to was, basically, nothing. Then, the judges tasted 24 whiskeys, always blind and in different orders and combinations, assembling thousands of tasting notes using the agreed-upon descriptors. In guided, blind tastings, they identified 23 flavor elements in American whiskey and developed a uniform vocabulary to describe them. The judges had no idea what it was they were testing. They trained 11 “judges”, most of whom came out of the exceptional wine program at University of California at Davis. They designed a new study to determine whether rye and bourbon could be distinguished by taste. In previous research on American and Scotch whiskey, Lahne and his collaborators had noted that the chemical lines between rye and bourbon were indistinct. Lahne liked that because, as a professor, he says he’s always looking for things that are “attention grabbing”. It was very much a shot across the bow of American whiskey’s conventional wisdom that sprouted some debate in professional distillers’ online groups. Last January, he and three co-authors published a paper claiming even well-trained tasters can’t reliably distinguish between bourbon and rye whiskey. Jacob Lahne (pronounced “lahn”) is a whiskey drinker and flavor scientist. Can you really taste the difference between bourbon and rye, or just think you can?ĭr.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |