Whisky vs Whiskey - A Brief History and Overview

Whisky is a spirit with a large historical and cultural significance, with many people having flown its flag to make it the globally known spirit it is today. Its history and origin, however, are muddied and up for debate (the whisky itself probably did not help either). Both the Scots and the Irish claim to be the inventors of it, but there is insufficient evidence to favour either party in the debate.

Whisky/Whiskey comes from the old Gaelic ‘uisge beatha’, or ‘usquebaugh’, meaning ‘water of life’, similar to the Scandinavian ‘aquavitae’. While there is some evidence suggesting the technique of distillation was brought over to the British Isles by Christian missionary monks, it is insufficient to disprove that Scottish or Irish farmers did not discover the technique of distillation themselves. However, the oldest evidence of distillation we have can be traced back to as far as 2000 B.C. in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq and Syria) as a way to produce perfumes and aromatisers. Hence, it is more than likely the former is the case, and lacking the climate for vineyards, opted to ferment grain, leading to the first versions of what we now know as whisky.

While we are unsure who made this wonderful liquid first, there are key differences between Scotch and Irish whiskies, from their raw materials to distillation and maturation.

Irish v Scottish

Peated Scotch Whiskey - Caol Ila 12 YO

Size: 700ml
ABV: 43%
Find here: £55

Unpeated Scotch Whiskey - Balvenie Double Wood 12 YO

Size: 700ml
ABV: 40%
Find here: £43.95

Irish Whiskey - Redbreast 12 YO

Size: 700ml
ABV: 40%
Find here: £49.95

Blends

The Scots and Irish also produce many blended whiskies, a mix of multiple liquids, from multiple distilleries (malt, grain, and rye whiskies all included!) within the same geographical region. These liquids are masterfully selected by a master blender and proportioned expertly to produce a whisky that is greater than the sum of its parts.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of having Emma Walker, master blender of her namesake Johnnie Walker, perch up at the bar of the prep room while I was working a prep shift. This allowed me unfiltered access to one of the greatest minds in the modern whisky world and she (to my benefit) oversimplified what she does for work and explained it as:

“Not too dissimilar to making a cocktail. The same way you would balance a cocktail behind a bar using spirits, liqueurs, juices, and syrups. In the blending room we take the same approach, the only difference is we are tasked with balancing whisky with, well, more whisky.”

Blended Scotch Whiskey - Johnnie Walker Black Label

Size: 700ml
ABV: 40%
Find here: £24.99

Blended Irish Whiskey -Tullamore D.E.W.

Size: 700ml
ABV: 40%
Find here: £24.64

The United States

As British colonisers started to land and settle in the Americas, specifically Kentucky, they realised the climate in the Southeast area of the United States was not conducive to the cultivation of barley. To work around this, they started distilling whiskey from corn, which later became known as the bourbon we know and love today.

Bourbon must be made in the United States using at least 51% corn in the mash bill. To be considered bourbon, it must also be distilled to no more than 80% ABV, bottled at a minimum of 40% ABV, and aged in charred virgin oak barrels with no minimum maturation period. However, to be considered “straight bourbon”, it must be aged for a minimum of two years.

Rye Whiskey has very similar production process specifications to Bourbon, with the same requirement of at least 51% Rye in the mash bill to be considered as such. The key difference in flavours, comes from the raw materials used in the production process. Bourbon tends to be more full-bodied and sweeter, while Ryes are generally drier, spicier, and have an underlying bready note.

There is also Tennessee whiskey, which is akin to bourbon in many of its processes, to the point where most Tenessee whiskies meet the requirements for bourbon. The key difference is that all Tennessee whiskies must be filtered using the Lincoln County Process which entails filtering (or steeping) the new-make spirit in charcoal chips before aging. However, many producers do not label themselves as such and prefer to label their products as Tennessee Whiskey.

Rye Whiskey - Rittenhouse Straight Rye

Size: 700ml
ABV: 50%
Find here: £39.99

Bourbon Whiskey - Buffalo Trace Bourbon

Size: 700ml
ABV: 40%
Find here: £26.68

Tennessee Whiskey - Daddy Rack Straight Tennessee Whiskey

Size: 700ml
ABV: 40%
Find here: £39.99

Canada

Canadian whisky later joined the party as American and European immigrants used their experience in distilling wheat and rye to preserve surplus grain in attempts to prevent spoilage. This was done in improvised stills and resulted in inconsistent, and uncontrolled new-make spirits, drank unaged by the local market. Commercial whisky production in Canada started when John Molson purchased a copper pot still initially used to distill rum.

Canadian whisky has the most relaxed controls in the world of whisky as the regulations lack any strict stipulations in terms of mash bill content and additives. As per Canada’s Food and Drugs Act, to be called Canadian whisky the liquid must "be mashed, distilled and aged in Canada", "be aged in small wood vessels for not less than three years", "contain not less than 40 percent alcohol by volume" and "may contain caramel and flavouring". However, distillers must not veer too far away from the original form as the liquid must "possess the aroma, taste and character generally attributed to Canadian whisky."

Canadian Whiskey - Lot 40 Rye Whisky

Size: 700ml
ABV: 43%
Find here: £37.99

Japan

The advent of Japanese whisky can be attributed to two main characters, Shinjiro Torii and Masataka Taketsuru. Torii was a pharmaceutical wholesaler by trade who made a profit by importing Western world liquor with his company “Akadama Port Wine”, named after the Portuguese fortified wine. Torii then set his sights on creating a Japanese whisky to rival that made in Scotland, Ireland, and the United States, and opened the distillery which would later be known as Yamazaki.

Torii hired Taketsuru, who had honed the art of making whisky in Scotland and used this knowledge to help establish the Yamazaki distillery as a successful one, before parting ways with the company in 1934 to start his own company Dainipponkaju, which would later become Nikka.

The influence these two people had on Japanese whisky resulted in it being the closest thing to Scotch whisky you can get outside Scotland. With very similar legal requirements to its Scottish counterpart, the key flavour differences come from the two countries' environmental differences.

Japanese Single Malt Whisky - Yamazaki 12 YO

Size: 700ml
ABV: 43%
Find here: £139.95

Japanese Blended Whisky - Toki Blended

Size: 700ml
ABV: 43%
Find here: £31.89

New World Whiskies

As whisky is currently enjoying another moment in the spotlight, new kids on the block, from different corners of the globe, are looking to stamp their mark on the whisk(e)y industry. Notably, these include Taiwan, France, Germany, Australia, and China, but as of 2022, over 30 countries are producing new world whiskies.

French - Domaine des Hautes Glaces Epistémè

Size: 500ml
ABV: 47%
Find here: £72.24

Chinese - Goalong 5 YO

Size: 700ml
ABV: 40%
Find here: £52.95

Ultimately, the choice of spelling it as whisky or whiskey boils down to traditional use and does not depict any discrepancies in raw materials, production process, or flavours. Scotland, Japan, and Canada all make whisky that tastes remarkably different from one another, within the United States of America alone there are three variations of whiskey with unique processes and flavour profiles.

By Fowwaz Ansari

What is Peated Whisky?

Peated whisky: because what’s the point of drinking whisky if it hasn’t been heavily flavoured by thousands of years of decaying organic matter?

I mean sure, when you put it like that maybe you can understand why peat tends to split whisky drinkers into two distinct camps. Some compare it to licking an ambulance brake pedal, and some compare it to licking an ambulance brake pedal and are genuinely excited by the idea. Regardless of whether this appeals, if you want to learn more about whisky, you need to learn a little about peat, because this mysterious substance has the amazing ability to impart rich and unique flavours into your glass.

So how does peating whisky work?

Dried peat has been used as fuel in Scotland for hundreds of years. Peat bogs are naturally occurring ‘carbon sinks’ i.e. areas that accumulate and store carbon-containing chemical compounds for an indefinite period. In fact, peat is so good at this, that it is the most efficient form of carbon sink on the planet and dried peat will produce more energy than coal when burnt. As well as this, peat is unique to bogs, mires and moorland – the sort of areas that appear in quite high frequency in, shall we say, the damper areas of Scotland, such as the north-west Highlands and the islands of Islay and Jura.

Thanks to these excellent energy rates, peat has therefore been used in the whisky making process for hundreds of years, and the primary way that peat’s distinctive flavour characteristics make their way into your dram is through its use as a fuel source in the malting process.

At this stage in production, the germinating process which has been started by soaking and turning the barley needs to be stopped, and this is done by the application of heat. Traditionally this was provided by a peat-fired kiln which caused the malted barley to absorb a significant quantity of peat smoke (depending on the drying time and the distiller’s preference). Perhaps surprisingly, this flavour is so strong, so persistent and so recognisable that it survives the entire distillation process, making its way through the mash tun, washbacks, stills and warehouse to remain detectable in your glass of whisky.

Is Islay the only place for peated whisky? And where is peat used?

Now, when people talk about peated whisky they generally think of Islay malts, but the use of peat isn’t limited to Islay now, and certainly wasn’t in the past. A number of factors means that peated whisky is still mainly linked to the islands and western highlands however. This is partly because these are the areas where peat preponderates, but also because many Lowland and Speyside distilleries took the opportunity to switch to firing their kilns with coke (a processed form of coal) when access to the railways made this a viable and cheaper option. As a result, for many years, the perception has been that if you want a peated whisky you need to head to Islay.

So what does peat bring to whisky?

Peat is whisky terroir

In a very literal sense, peat is terroir (take that, wine!). As a result, different peat will impart different flavours, and different distilleries will use peat for different length of time when drying their malt. If you want to get technical, the concentration of peat in whisky can be measured by PPM (phenol parts per million). Phenols are the class of compounds in peat smoke which are retained by the malted barley and their prevalence therefore has a big impact on taste. On Islay, whisky can range from 1-2ppm up to 54ppm. What does this mean? In terms of tasting notes, a peated whisky is likely to give you sulphur, smoked meats, iodine, rich bonfire smoke.  If this sounds good to you, perhaps you should explore some Islay whiskies?

Where to start your peat odyssey

Why not start at Lagavulin?

The oldest distillery on Islay can trace its (unofficial and highly illegal) history back to a collection of small bothy distilleries in Lagganmhoullin dating from 1742. These were brought together into a legitimate business in 1816, which means that the brand has been producing highly-regarded peated single malt whisky for at least two hundred years now.

The old settlement of Lagganmhoullin is now a small town on the Lagavulin bay where the distillery is positioned - open to the wild weather of the north Atlantic, which gives the spirit a lot of its coastal aromas of seaweed and smoked fish.  This coastal spot also provides a distribution route with the distillery owning its own Clyde puffer up until 1956, meaning barley could be brought in by sea and finished spirit sent back down to Glasgow with just a slight detour around the Mull of Kintyre.

Both the peat and water are locally sourced, as they always have been - the Illeachs wouldn’t have it any other way – and the two intertwine on their slow descent to the distillery from Lochan Sholum, inland and 200m above sea level. From here the water flows two and a half miles to the distillery, soaking up moss and peat, but don’t get confused.  At this point the peat contributes only colour and a slight tang to the water – as it takes on the same shade as the finished whisky – the smoky flavour comes almost exclusively from the kiln.

Lagavulin no longer malts its own barley – the floor maltings closed in 1974, but they procure their own specific recipe from the Port Ellen maltings. It is dried over peat for a high proportion of the total drying time giving a final phenol count of around 37ppm.

After the excitement of distillation, the spirit rests in the coastal warehouses, seawater pooling on the earthen floors and breathes steadily for 8, 12 or 16 years before bottling. Maturation allows the spirit to soak up the atmosphere of this unique setting and takes just a slight edge off the wild smoky flavour of all that centuries old organic matter. Yum.

Try these classic whiskies from Lagavulin

Lagavulin 16 Year Old, 43% ABV, around £49 for 70cl – Long-time standard bearer of the range, dominated by Lapsang Souchong, hints of pipe tobacco, smoked fish and iodine.  A classic Islay single malt.

Lagavulin 8 Year Old, 48% ABV, around £52 for 70cl - Originally a limited-edition to mark the distillery’s bicentenary in 2016, but now part of the core range this expression is all woodsmoke, tobacco and pepper.

Lagavulin Distillers Edition, 43% ABV, around £74 for 70cl - Double matured in Pedro Ximenez casks, this is a mellow Lagavulin with flavours of seaweed, Christmas cake and sea salt.

Want to see The Three Drinkers cutting peat at Laguvalin in the sunshine? Watch The Three Drinkers do Scotch Whisky, now streaming on Amazon Prime!