Over at Saveur.com they asked me to write up a quick guide to whisky, which sounds a lot easier to do than it is.
I tried to hit the major categories and what's in them without making any mistakes. I'm sure you'll let me know if I did!
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No mistakes and good newbie good to the basics. I wish you had mentioned Straight Bourbon vs Bourbon, but I can see where that might lose some.
Posted by: Wade Woodard | March 21, 2014 at 08:44 AM
newbie guide
Posted by: Wade Woodard | March 21, 2014 at 08:44 AM
Certainly very basic but I presume that was the goal. You mention whiskey can be made anywhere but it might have been useful to add a category of "Other International Whisky" and mention briefly other countries starting to appear on the market with more regularity like Australia, India, Taiwan, France, New Zealand, Sweden, England, Wales and the Netherlands. All of these have a half dozen or more options on the Whisky Exchange website for example.
Posted by: tanstaafl2 | March 21, 2014 at 10:01 AM
I considered it but decided I didn't have anything to say without saying a lot. Certainly there's a lot of exciting things happening in international whiskey these days.
Posted by: Camper English | March 21, 2014 at 10:05 AM
What about the "Blended Malts" (previously "vatted"). Monkey Shoulder for one is always easy for the barman to wrap his head (and lips) around, but the neophyte drinker often gets thrown in a loop. For the record I preferred the term Vatted. It sounded more fancy and secret like.
Posted by: M.Callahan | March 24, 2014 at 03:26 AM
I figured that there are only a few of them so it was best lest skipped for the purposes of this story. And I agree about vatted vs blended - that was a really lame decision.
Posted by: Camper English | March 24, 2014 at 08:32 AM