By Richard Thomas
Making maple wooden charcoal at Jack Daniel’s within the Nineteen Thirties.
(Credit score: Public Area)
One of many ugly little secrets and techniques of sensory science is simply how a lot the senses of style and odor could be influenced by preconceptions. Ideally, this actuality could be guarded in opposition to, and it’s what makes the notion of the blind style check so attention-grabbing. The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 was the earliest lesson of simply how snobbery and closure to new ideas can situation and blinker people who find themselves purported to be skilled and rational in a given subject, opening the door to biases. That wine tasting has been immortalized in movie, and did greater than any single occasion to provide us a world the place wines not from France are literally taken severely, exactly as a result of it proved that wines from not-France might compete.
A narrower instance of this psychsomatic impact on style has infested writing about American whiskey: the notion of a maple syrup observe in Tennessee Whiskey. The processing of the chemical alerts our olfactory senses ship to our brains is interpretive and based mostly on expertise, so completely different experiences can lead two completely different folks to label a selected observe in another way. However figuring out the maple taste is as near common because it will get in the USA, in order that isn’t the rationale so lots of my colleagues constantly discover a maple observe in Jack Daniel’s and George Dickel whiskeys. Some have even discovered it within the in-house Greenbrier White Label.
That maple observe is just not there, interval, and the rationale some see it isn’t as a result of a neurological sign connects that sensation to the closest reminiscence. This connection is made due to a preconception of the Lincoln County Course of, a preconception that hilariously means they’ve wholly misunderstood what the method is for. In different phrases, if you learn “this Dickel has a maple observe,” that must be translated as “I by no means realized why George Dickel does what it does, however I’m writing about them anyway.”
The Lincoln County Shortcut
Tennessee’s signature contribution to whiskey-making is the institutionalization of charcoal leaching, higher referred to as the Lincoln County Course of. Distillers within the state didn’t invent the charcoal filtration of latest make whiskey, however it simply so occurs that Jack Daniel’s is from the state, and that firm has all the time utilized this technique. Since Jack Daniel’s is America’s largest whiskey model, and second solely to Johnnie Walker worldwide, which means charcoal leaching has grow to be synonymous with the corporate and its area of origin: Lincoln County.
Tennessee whiskey-makers have historically relied upon sugar maples to provide the hardwood for making that charcoal. This custom is now enshrined in regulation, so the wooden supply for the charcoal utilized in making Tennessee Whiskey can solely be sugar maple. That alternative of wooden, nonetheless, is completely about availability and has nothing to do with imparting taste. The usage of any charcoal will, in a way, really subtract taste from a brand new make whiskey, and sugar maple isn’t any exception.
Sugar maple charcoal filtration finished on a craft scale at Nelson’s Greenbrieer
(Credit score: Richard Thomas)
The Lincoln County Course of serves the identical goal as a Brita filter. Charcoal has a really excessive carbon content material and a porous, high-volume floor. Carbon is chemically sticky. So, filtering a liquid by way of charcoal removes sure reactive compounds from the liquid. If that’s what you need, the liquid is purified.
This data is accessible in most supermarkets and on numerous survivalist TV reveals, however one way or the other these details have didn’t penetrate the brains of a few of my colleagues. That is particularly the case of those that (apparently) have by no means requested the parents from Jack Daniel’s, George Dickel or others simply what the Lincoln County Course of is meant to do. By subtracting unstable compounds from it, the brand new make will get a head begin on some elements of maturation, as a result of these unstable compounds would have in any other case damaged down after a number of years of maturation.
Within the 2010s, many newcomers to whiskey-making have been touting gimmicky strategies involving stress cooking and sonic therapies to speed up the maturation course of. All of them ignored a time-tested, confirmed technique for producing a easy, mellow whiskey in half the time: the Lincoln County Course of.
The method has its drawbacks. Recall that the eradicated compounds break down throughout the maturation course of. With out getting right into a prolonged chemistry lesson, what they break down into is helpful in producing what folks like about center aged and outdated whiskeys. Nonetheless, the purpose is charcoal filtration is precisely that: a filter, not an infusion.
Why Sugar Maple?
To clarify why a Tennessean would select sugar maple for his filtration charcoal, first reply this query: why isn’t there a considerable maple syrup trade anyplace in the USA south of, say, Massachusetts? The bushes thrive throughout North America, so what’s it about very northern sugar maples that make them viable for making syrup, however not these rising south of New England?
First, do you know you can also make syrup from bushes aside from sugar maples? The rationale sugar maples have their identify is as a result of they produce twice the quantity of sugar of different sugar-bearing bushes. You may make syrup from different maples, birch and even walnuts, however its extra environment friendly to depend on sugar maples when you’ve got them.
It’s additionally extra environment friendly to depend on these northern sugar maples for industrial functions. The colder local weather makes for a extra productive and extra dependable sugaring cycle. That’s important for constructing an trade round maple syrup.
The Lincoln County Course of, JD fashion
(Credit score: Brown-Forman)
In Tennessee, the local weather is awful for making maple syrup, however there are nonetheless an ideal many sugar maples thriving within the forests. All different hardwoods had and nonetheless have a plethora of makes use of aside from making charcoal. Sugar maple is ample, however not a lot used for making furnishings, musical devices, barrels, boats or in development. I’ve raised this matter with Chris Fletcher (present Jack Daniel’s Grasp Distiller), Jeff Arnett (former Jack Daniel’s Grasp Distiller) and John Lunn (former George Dickel Grasp Distiller, now deceased). All three have been adamant that charcoal filtration doesn’t really put something into the brand new make whiskey; two of the three stated the rationale they’ve used sugar maple is as a result of it’s an affordable and ample supply of charcoal, nothing extra.
Nonetheless not persuaded? Think about this. The ignition level of dry sugar is 350F. To make charcoal, the temperature have to be above 750F. Moreover, making charcoal isn’t something like charring the within of a barrel. The latter course of scorches the floor and carmelizes the inside of the wooden, whereas charcoal-making carbonizes the whole materials. The stuff maple syrup is manufactured from is totally burned off by the method of constructing charcoal.
Classes Discovered
It’s necessary on this enterprise to protect in opposition to your conceits and preconceived notions in any train that accommodates a basically subjective component, and the easiest way to do this when a blind tasting is inconvenient is schooling. Brown-Forman whiskeys typically have a banana observe as a result of their home yeast household produces it; that’s science and the corporate confirms it. Filtration by way of sugar maple charcoal doesn’t introduce maple flavors to a whiskey, as a result of that isn’t the aim, apart from which the maple-tinged sugars in query have lengthy since been scorched into ash.
The maple observe isn’t there. As for why some would understand it, the maple taste is so acquainted on this nation that I can not credit score the misidentification is because of a shallow palate. The one causes left are twin failures in trade schooling and a failure of sensory analysis. Maintain that in thoughts the subsequent time you examine Jack Daniel’s Previous No. 7 and its “trademark maple syrup observe.”
