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I’ve been doing a lot of research on flavoring and whiskey making. One thing that I keep coming back to is something I’ve seen stated a few times in my research.
The agreed on percentages of what makes up the final flavor of a whiskey is as follows: 10% Yeast Strain, 15% Distillation, 25% Small Grains and 50% Maturation.
Something to think about as you consider what to improve. Here’s some notes I’ve gathered over time on the grain flavors. Apologies as some statement seem contradictory, but these are raw notes I’ve gathered from credible sources and sharing to potentially save you gathering the same.
Barley
Malted barley produces nutty, smoky, some chocolate or cocoa flavors and a flavor often described as cereal or possibly toast. There’s also a distinctive characteristic simply referred to as malt.
Barley imparts a warm, roasted toffee taste to a spirit
Unmalted barley enhances the grain and cereal qualities of the whiskey and introduces light sharp and sour fruity notes like green apple and lemon.
Rye
Rye gives spicy flavors of black and green pepper, anise, mint and, of course, rye bread. Rye imparts a dryness in the mouthfeel that’s sometimes referred to as leathery. Rye can enhance clove and nutmeg flavors from the barrel. If it’s poorly distilled, rye can introduce heavy menthol or camphor flavors into whiskey.
Wheat
Wheat doesn’t provide a substantial set of flavors on its own but does provide a very light bready-ness, some honey and touches of mint. It can provide a gentleness to whiskey and showcases flavors from the other grains or the barrel.
When wheat replaces rye in a bourbon mashbill—often called a wheater—and ages upward of 8 years, the expected result is of long, rounded, and complex caramel notes. Wheated bourbons present French bakery aromas and certain flavors are consistently found in the genre, regardless of who distilled them. They’re often vanilla and caramel drenched with hints of citrus and delicate spice, but could be as accurately described for what they are not—wheated bourbons do not coat the palate with the same baking spice notes as their ryed counterparts. “I like to tell people it is pretty much identical to the difference between wheat bread and rye bread,” says Denny Potter, co-master distiller at Heaven Hill, makers of wheated bourbons Larceny and Old Fitzgerald. “Wheat will be softer and lighter and rye will be spicier and more robust.”
The contemporary thought is that young wheated bourbons don’t taste as good. “Rye grain, either in rye whiskey or in ryed bourbon, masks youth. Wheated bourbon needs more time in the barrel to have a comparable ‘mature’ taste,”
Malting rye or wheat gives a soft grain sweetness to the final product.
Corn
There’s a lot of confusion about corn in whiskey and it’s often mis-credited for the sweetness, vanilla and maple syrup notes in bourbon. No grain actually provides sugar content in whiskey – sugar doesn’t pass through distillation – but because YD#2 corn isn’t a strong source of flavors in and of itself, the oak sugars and vanillins from that new, charred oak barrel shine through.
Corn whiskey is your best bet if you want an easy-drinking spirit. Its sweet honey, browned butter, and creamy flavors create an alluring base to keep you sipping, while its notes of toasted marshmallow — derived from the use of charred American oak barrels — add a top note that sets you over the edge.
The flavor of corn is prevalent fresh off the still in the White Dog; but over years of aging, the corn becomes neutral, and lends mostly in the overall sweetness to the finished product. *Corn is not a small grain.
Aged corn whiskeys — made of 80% corn — and many bourbons tend to carry a clear popcorn note amidst the sweet vanilla that tends to dominate. Unaged corn whiskey, like moonshine, wears its corn influence on its sleeve, and the primary taste an imbiber will get is sweet, buttered popcorn.
Corn’s role in whiskey is to provide cheap carbohydrates for the yeast to convert into ethanol. Ideally, very little flavor comes from the corn itself. Heavy corn notes – especially burnt corn oil, popcorn or “movie theater butter” – are often considered faults in bourbon. This is why bourbon recipes always include a proportion of the “flavoring grains” of barley, rye and/or wheat. Corn also introduces compounds that can heighten the ethanol burn of whiskey which bourbon distillers must be vigilant to remove either during distillation, maturation or filtration. The modern distiller’s corn is Yellow Dent #2
White corn introduces some lighter fruit and floral notes like green apple.
Blue corn imparts more nuttiness and a distinct “foxiness” or grape/brandy like character.
Red corn strains like Bloody Butcher – used by Wood Hat and also New Liberty in Pennsylvania and Jeptha Creed Distillery in Kentucky – may introduce the most flavor of any heirloom corn strain with an orchestra-like complexity of nuttiness, smokiness and a multitude of individual fruit notes. High Wire Distilling Co. in South Carolina has revived Jimmy Red corn which they say creates nutty, sweet and mineralic flavors and a creamy mouthfeel.
Other:
Triticale is wheat-rye hybrid that produces – as expected – spicy and peppery notes similar to rye but generally softer.
There’s no consensus on the flavors of rice in whiskey – possibly due to the large number of varieties available – but recurring flavors include lighter floral and delicate fruit notes.
The grand-daddy of all whiskey grain processes is peat smoking malted barley. Peat is partially decayed vegetation or organic matter, kind of like early-stage coal, which was historically used to heat homes in northern Europe. By burning it to dry to the freshly-malted barley, distillers introduced a distinctive smokey, earthy “peat reek” into the spirit.
Westland Distillery in Washington uses a locally harvested peat rich with a local plant called Labrador tea which apparently smells of rosemary and lavender. Wood Buffalo Brewing Co. in Canada once had their grains accidentally smoked by a wildfire.
Back in the US, Tenth Ward Distilling in Maryland makes a Smoked Corn Whiskey which is as the name describes. Even Woodford Reserve got in the smoked-grain game with their 2017 Master’s Collection Cherry Wood Smoked Barley release. There are actually quite a lot of distilleries experimenting with smoke from a variety of sources in their whiskeys.
Grains can be toasted, roasted and in other ways processed to develop special character.
Chocolating is exactly as the term implies – the cocoa note in Corsair’s Ryemaggedon is unmistakable. Rabbit Hole Distillery in Kentucky includes honey malted barley in their Bourbon’s grain bill which, unsurprisingly, adds sweet floral notes to it. |
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Post time 2022-9-22 12:08:53
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