Cask Maturation and Ageing
As soon as a whisky has been fermented and distilled, it’s then positioned right into a picket cask, the place by legislation, it should age for no less than three years to ensure that it to be classed as a whisky.
The cask used is unquestionably some of the necessary deciding components by way of how a completed whisky goes to style. Sometimes constructed from oak, most casks used for whisky maturation are frivolously charred on the within and have beforehand saved liquids akin to bourbon whiskey, sherry (Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso are extremely popular), madeira wine, crimson wine, port, and another liquids.
As a whisky ages in a cask, it picks up notes, flavours, and aromas from the wooden the cask is fabricated from, and the liquid it housed beforehand. That isn’t to say {that a} Scotch aged in an ex-bourbon cask will style like bourbon as a result of it received’t. It could, nevertheless, decide up just a few caramel notes like these frequent in bourbon.
The longer a whisky ages in a cask, the extra intense the flavour might be, although this isn’t at all times the case both.
Climate and Local weather
Lastly, we’ve got climate and local weather, which all comes all the way down to geography.
American bourbon whiskey is produced in Kentucky, which is often very heat and humid. Islay whisky, nevertheless, is made on the island of Islay, which is coastal, a lot cooler, and far wetter too.
Temperature performs a key function in how a whisky tastes as it could possibly affect how the whisky interacts with the oak barrel it’s saved in, and the way a lot flavour it absorbs.
You often discover that whiskies produced on coastal distilleries, akin to these on Islay, even have a barely salty, briney, sea breeze and marine-like high quality from the water, the wind, and the ocean salt within the air.
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