Revolutions in Grain & Mash: New and novel grains, cereals and mash bills in modern craft and alt whiskies.
In the last number of years there has been an explosion of new small distilleries especially in the U.S.A. but also within Europe and the wider world. Many of these young Turks running craft and alt distilleries wish to make exciting new whiskies, to break new boundaries, to do things that have never been done before. these are the rule breakers, the men and women who are forging the future of whiskey, the new tastes and techniques of the future. Some experiments end in failure, others explore interesting new avenues, whether it be in barrel woods and shapes, charring of barrels, smoking with peat or with woods, finishing with new types of second fill barrels from vermouth to wines to beer barrels. Even the types of still is being played with, with alambic brandy stills to home made stills being put into production. New climatic conditions result in new tastes in aged whiskey.
However for this talk we are going to narrow it down to one topic, the revolution that is taking place with Grains and Mash. We all know the last great breakthroughs in grain and mash, when we Irish added unmalted barley to malted barley and thus created Pure Pot Still whiskey or when the Americans invented Corn whiskey, Rye whiskey and Bourbon using a corn and other grains mash bill.
In a possible palette which goes from blue corn, rye, millet, milo, quinoa, spelt, teff, trictordeum, tricticale, buckwheat, oats, grainarchy, prairie grass, Job's tears, rice, chocolate malts, caramel malt 60 or I20, honey malt, unmalted barley, chocolate wheat, chocolate rye... using the more flavorsome, lower yielding two eared barley.....beer mashes...... we are seeing an atomic blast of new flavors. Obviously these new ingredients require new techniques and different fermentation methods, different distillation temperatures and come with many difficult and annoying traits to be overcome by the master distillers.
So join us in a very brief exploration of a few of these whiskies, visit the future, be amongst the first to explore these wild new frontiers.
This tasting will take place in Wynn's Hotel.
