Complete Guide to Whiskey

Transcript Hello. My name is J Rosser Lomax. I’m a bartender at Rye House and at-large. And I’ve been in the food and beverage world for about five years doing a wide variety of things. From craft beer, whiskey, classic cocktails. Rye House is a bar and restaurant in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. We’re …

Transcript This is how you make a Gold Rush. This is a shaken drink with citrus, honey, bourbon and that’s it. Very simple, very straight forward. You can make it at home. Just follow along. For my proportions I like to do three quarters of an ounce of lemon, three quarters of an ounce honey …

Transcript Pairing food and whisky is about finding complementary flavors o-, or contrasting flavors depending on how you want to go. Here we have some pork chiquitos, which are chili and coco-rubbed roast pork, smoked cheddar and a cilantro jalapeno sauce over the top. Something like that, it’s going to be like fatty, round and …

Transcript How to make your own cocktail. It’s actually surprisingly easy. All you have to do is consider what you have on hand in terms of ingredients and what do you want to make. Do you want make something that’s stronger, stirred, boozier? You know, it helps to have a mixing glass, some spoons, strainers. …

Transcript Whiskey has a long and distinguished history, sometimes sordid actually. Farmers have a big bumper year. They can’t sell everything locally. They can’t store, because cereals go bad in a hurry and they get really nasty when they do. It can make you really sick. There’s an incentive to take that and make liquor …

Transcript How to make a Sazerac. The Sazerac’s one of the most classic of cocktails after the Old Fashioned. It’s basically a variation on the Old Fashioned. It’s sugar, water, spirit, bitters. Only we’re going to change the bitters from old Angostura or Aromatic or Boker’s to Peychaud bitters. We’re also going to rinse the …

Transcript Whiskey in popular culture is one of those things that everybody thinks of. You got your old wild, wild west. The X’s is how good it is, absolutely. You got cowboys slugging shots. You have the classic scotch connoisseur taking a glass. You know, it’s funny. Because a really old, well aged scotch does …

Transcript What’s the best way to cure a whiskey hangover? Well, it depends. The prevailing belief is that a hangover is caused by dehydration and the metabolism of alcohol by your liver. The most recent study I read suggests caffeine, ibuprofen or some other vasodilator which will literally make the veins in your head stop …

Transcript Shaking versus stirring. There are two ways to make your cocktail; one is to stir it on ice in a mixing glass and the other one to brutalize that ice inside of a metal tin. Generally speaking liquor on liquor drinks are stirred, and anything that involves a lot of citrus or needs to …

Transcript If you’re going to make cocktails you need to consider your tools. Stirred drinks? Take mixing glasses. This isn’t just a regular piped glass, this is tempered glass, because as you go to work making your drinks, if you shake them or stir them too hard, you’re likely to break something. A regular piped …

Transcript So what is Canadian whiskey? Well, it’s whiskey made in Canada. Generally speaking, Canadian whiskey is, people think, Crown Royal, and that’s really where it stops. Canadian whiskey was very popular during Prohibition, because it was legal to make in Canada, and then you could just sort of make sure it got across the …

Transcript Bourbon. Bourbon is an American liquor. It’s made from at least 51 percent corn. It has a wide variety of different legal controls on the manufacturing process. Bourbon is the classic American spirit. It takes the things that we’re best at, like growing corn and shipping things, and turns it into booze. It’s made …

Transcript What is light whiskey? Light whiskey is a legal term that was built in the ’70s for people who wanted to distill their whiskey straight to proof, generally 80 proof, rather than distilling it to a higher proof and then watering it down to proof. It’s lighter. I’m told it’s easier drinking. I’ve literally …

Transcript The Old Fashioned is the most classic of classic cocktails and it’s also the simplest and, in many ways, the most elegant. Sugar, water, spirits, and bitters. That’s it. The earliest Old Fashioneds were actually with Cognac. And it does make a wonderful drink, but I find adding sugar to Cognac can be a …

Transcript Scotch whiskey is a very wide wonderful world with a lot of subtlety and interesting things going on in there. You have a wide variety of scotches whether they’re blended or single malts. Some things are a little softer. Some things are really peaty. And then some things are really, really peaty or lend …

Transcript Serving whiskey with water and ice, simple, straight forward, incredibly rewarding. All you need is a good sturdy glass, couple of good ice cubes, some whiskey of course, just a dash of water or soda. Give it a little body, round it out a bit. You can see it fizzes up nicely, we’re using …

Transcript Selecting whiskey for use in mixed drinks takes consideration, depending on the kind of drink you’re going to make, and the kind of whiskey you maybe use. Generally speaking, I used whatever I have available, but when I’m behind the bar I have a lot more choices, and you have to be a little …

Transcript When you’re serving whiskey you can do it in a variety of ways. Some people like it neat. Some people like it on the rocks. And some people take it with a little bit of soda, some ginger ale. So serving whiskey neat you can do in a snifter or shot glass, depending on …

Transcript How to make a Manhattan. Manhattan is one of the most classic of cocktails. Its ingredients are simple. Whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters, ice and water. You can make this in pretty much any bar so as long as you have the appropriate tools. A mixing glass, a bar spoon, a strainer, a jigger, …

Transcript Napoleon had a very pithy comment about champagne. “In victory, my troops deserve it. In defeat, they require it.” Whiskey’s basically the same thing. Except, take victory and defeat and replace it with today and yesterday. You need whiskey. Whiskey loves you. Whiskey is meant to be drank. It is meant to be imbibed. …

Transcript Reading the label on a bottle of scotch is actually pretty easy. All you have to do is look on there and it will tell you a few things to look out for, straight off the bat. You know, whether it’s blended or single malt and then how long it’s been in barrels. Generally …

Transcript Jim Beam is the largest bourbon producer in America, and consequently the world. They’re one of the four major distilleries. But they actually make a lot of products besides the classic white label or the yellow label rye that you might not know. There are few of them that are smaller batch. It’s been …

Transcript Whiskey soda is a classic, wonderful thing. Seven and seven is one the first things I ordered when I was 14. Tasted like, well, tasted awful but it’s one of those things you get used to. Like anything good in life, it takes time, patience, perseverance. It’s basically as easy as it sounds. We’ll …

Transcript Tennessee whiskey, like Jack Daniels or George Dickle, is whiskey that’s made in Tennessee from a process that’s similar to bourbon, but not quite. You’ll see sometimes “sour mash” on the label, that’s part of the production process where they’ll reuse part of a given mash, which is when you put all your grains …

Transcript Whiskey is a wonderful beverage. It’s full of flavors and smells and it’s something you want to savor, especially if it’s something like a very nice Scotch. There’s a lot of hidden potential in this glass, and it takes a few things to really meet it half way and find its really wonderful, unique …

Transcript A Hot Toddy is very simply a mixture of hot water, whiskey, some lemon juice, some honey. I like to make mine a little wider. You know, do some interesting things with it. So you start with your tins. You need whiskey, first off. Bourbon, rye, scotch. Whatever you have on hand works perfectly. …

Transcript Irish whiskey is an interesting category with a fairly rich history. There are no longer any independent distilleries in Ireland, but there are a bunch of smaller brands that are very interesting. Most people when they think Irish whiskey, they’re going to think straight-forward Protestant/Catholic. None of that really matters. Actually, an interesting fact …

Transcript What is wheat whiskey? Wheat whiskey is whiskey made from wheat. It means it’s 51% wheat in the mash bill and up, of course. Generally, American made. Wheat grows really well in the Midwest. So, you have a number of whiskeys, including Colorado-style whiskey, Tennessee whiskey sometimes will have very high wheat contents, and …

Transcript So when we talk about single and blended malts, we’re talking about barley whiskeys. Single malts come from one area, single process, and then put directly into the barrel. Blended malts will take different expressions of different whiskeys made in different areas and blend them together to get a consist or unique taste. Single …

Transcript As far as brands of whiskeys go, you have a wide variety, depending on your price point, your level of connoisseurship. Everything from dirt cheap, you know, just brown liquor, all the way up through, you know, very expensive scotches, blends and single malts. A lot of people, you know, they have their favorite …

Transcript So, American whiskey is, very simply, whiskey made in America. America, however, has the most vibrant and most interesting whiskey scene, I think, of pretty much anywhere in the world right now because we have a stronger tradition of making rye whiskey. We have bourbon, which is exclusively made in America. And we have …

Transcript Rye whiskey is whiskey made from rye. Americans do it as well as pretty much anybody, but the Canadians are well known for it to. Rye is a very hardy crop that grows better in cold climates. While it’s difficult to distill because there are proteins in the mash that will make it stick …

Transcript Whiskey for beginners. I mean people who are just starting with whiskey. I don’t mean, you know, how you start your night which is, usually, something big, flavorful, overproof. Work your way down to White Lightning in the back of a guy’s pick up truck going down the highway. So, you want something that’s …

Transcript The alcohol content of whiskey generally runs from about 40 percent alcohol by volume or 80 proof in the American system up through, say, 66 percent alcohol by volume for some of the higher proof brands. It’s a nice, efficient way to take your ethanol if you’re not one of those club-hopping rocket soda …

Transcript Cask strength. What is a cask? It’s a barrel that you put your whiskey into to let it sit and mature. Wood acts like a filter. Most whiskeys are barrel aged because of the brown color. It gives them sweetness. It gives them notes of vanilla and other delicious aromatics. But to be cask …

Transcript So malt versus grain are two different ways of making your whiskey. Malt refers to the process by which you germinate barely to make some of the sugars in the actual cereal grain more accessible. When you sprout it, when you germinate it, it’s called malting the barley. You set it, you let it …

Transcript Cask strength, barrel strength, proof. What do all these things mean? Excellent question. Proof is a measurement of alcohol by volume in America. It’s generally double. The proof is double the alcohol by volume. So a liquor at 80 proof is 40 percent alcohol by volume. A 100 proof is 50 percent alcohol by …

Transcript What is scotch? Scotch is a specific kind of whiskey. It’s made from barley. It’s made in Scotland. Single malt is blended. It’s a little more complex than bourbon or rye whiskeys. It has a little bit more of the (?) expression. Which is, say, where it comes from. Where it’s made in Scotland, …

Transcript What is bourbon? Bourbon is the classic American spirit, not the cigarettes, the actual whiskey itself. Bourbon is a corn based liquor with its own controlled methods of production that are legally classified in America and in other countries as well. Basically, bourbon is a corn liquor. It’s a minimum of 51 percent corn …

Transcript What is whiskey? Whiskey is simple, whiskey is brown. It’s your classic brown spirit. It’s a liquor derived from cereal grains. Things like barley, corn, wheat, rye. Generally comes out at about 40 percent of alcohol by volume, which is 80 proof American. It’s a very accessible liquor for people who are looking to …

Transcript How to pick a good, cheap bourbon. Good and cheap rarely run together in the same crowd. Generally, if you want quality, you’re going to have to pay for it. So, how do you pick an unoffensive, inexpensive bourbon? Most people don’t like their bourbons called cheap. I respect that. So, how do you …

Transcript Whiskey, scotch and bourbon. Now, scotch and bourbon are both whiskeys. But rectangles aren’t always squares. Scotch is whiskey that’s made in Scotland, and has this distinct tradition. It’s generally made with peated malts. It’s made to a different flavor balance than just regular whiskey. Whiskey can be made anywhere. Single malt whiskey can …