BY HEATHER GREENE

A couple of weeks ago, I posed a simple question on my social media outlets and to a few personal contacts: “Have any of you tried a good flavored craft whiskey that I might not know about?” Here are a few of my favorite responses:

Finding a good craft whiskey is like trying to find the best-looking person in a room full of ugly people. / Are you dreaming????? / I would think of it as the least worst flavored whiskey.

Oh, whiskey purists! Please don’t throw anything at me, and sit down for this: Flavored whiskey isn’t exactly new, and I’ve found a few flavored whiskeys made sans cynicism and without the added mystery chemicals from which most of our experienced whiskey palates run screaming. These brands embody that authenticity and integrity that large liquor companies pay big bucks to look like they do.

On-site at Colorado’s Leopold Bros. distillery. Photo: Courtesy Todd Leopold

Flavored Whiskey Existed Well Before Fireball

It wasn’t unusual to find rye whiskeys infused with spices and sugar in bars and in homes pre-Prohibition. Whiskey rectifiers — merchants who rebottled or blended whiskeys from various distillers — often added macerated fruits, spices, and black tea to their whiskey to give it a unique and proprietary personality. Should the rectifier’s whiskey source change, they could rely on that black tea note or added fig juice to provide a reasonable amount of product consistency.

The added ingredients also smoothed the rough edges of a rotgut whiskey. An old manual dated from 1885 entitled The Art of Blending and Compounding Liquors and Wines by Joseph Fleischman states, “All newly-distilled liquors and spirits have a rough and pungent taste, which must be remedied before they can be used as beverages. This is done by fruit juices or flavors, which are mainly alcoholic extracts of fruits or other substances, and are employed by certain proportions to counteract the raw taste of the new spirits.”

Some argue that today’s availability of an excellent whiskey is precisely the reason why we don’t need flavored whiskeys anymore. Whiskey is now good enough to drink on its own. But for today’s craft producers, that’s not the point…

Read the rest at Eater

Like this? Customise your own whisky at the Glenfiddich Gallery

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