Category: Spirits
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Amaretto: What To Know
Amaretto is an Italian sweet liqueur that is used in classic cocktails and desserts. What Is Amaretto Liqueur? Amaretto is an Italian liqueur made from apricot kernels, which impart a distinct bitter almond flavour to the liquor. It gets its name from the Italian word for “bitter,” amaro. Brown sugar’s sweeter notes balance out the…
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Alcohol-Free Alcohol: What To Know
Many alcohol-free wines and beers start out as “real” wine or beer before the alcohol is removed. Spirits are slightly different, but we will return to that later. Beer & Wine: How to get an Alcohol-Free version (De-Alcoholisation) The boiling point of alcohol (78°C) is lower than that of water (100°C). One of the most…
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Pot Versus Column Stills: What To Know
Start a conversation about many of the world’s beloved spirits and the subject will quickly turn to ingredients and ageing. Distillation, on the other hand, is often overlooked, even though it is one of the most impactful aspects of spirits production. The varieties to know are pot and column distillation, named after the stills in which they…
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Distillation: What To Know
A modern distillery kind of looks like it belongs somewhere in the Chocolate Factory (maybe adjacent to the “Fizzy Lifting Drink” room?): depending on what’s being distilled, there might be tall gleaming columns connected by a network of tubes or massive, rounded pots that look like giant copper Hershey Kisses. Believe it or not, these…
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Irish Whiskey: What To Know
What is Irish Whiskey? Irish Whiskey is a mash of cereal grains, fermented, distilled and matured for a minimum of three years inside wood casks on the Island of Ireland. What is the difference between Irish whiskey and Scotch? The difference between Irish whiskey and Scotch isn’t worlds apart and they can be seen as…
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Whisk(e)y Types: What To Know
What’s the difference between a Single Malt Scotch Whisky and a Blended Scotch Whisky? Or between a whisky, a whiskey, a bourbon, a Tennessee whiskey and a rye? Let’s start with what they have in common. In its widest definition, whisky is a drink distilled from the fermentation of malt – that’s any grain that…
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Armagnac: What To Know
The past decade has witnessed a quiet revolution for chronically overlooked spirits. In the world of agave, the intricate charm of mezcal has rocketed into the international spotlight, with drinkers discovering its smoky appeal en masse. When it comes to whiskey, rye has stepped outside of bourbon’s shadow, with its spicy bite finally getting the…
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Cognac: What To Know
Sip a glass of cognac, and you’ll understand why the French say it’s made from l’eau de vie (“the water of life”). Produced from white grapes grown across the Charente and Charente-Maritime departments of western France, cognac is a protected category of brandy that must meet the requirements of the appellation d’origine contrôllée (AOC) in…
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Absinthe: What To Know
Banned for almost a century, unjustly accused to be responsible for hallucinogen effects, today absinthe has been reborn and gained recognition worldwide.
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Mezcal: What To Know
You might know mezcal as tequila’s smoky cousin, but it is in fact an ancestor of the world’s most popular agave drink—and “smoky” only scratches the surface of a spirit which is as diverse as the country of Mexico itself. Like wine, each bottle reflects the unique terroir of the region where it was distilled,…
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