With
St. Patrick's Day looming up ahead of us it's time to think - not about corned beef and cabbage and beer, which
combined has always struck me as a gastric disaster waiting to happen - but rather about the real Irish diet, which is,
of course, whiskey and a dash of water.
Everywhere I go I encounter confusion amongst the good and drunk people of this country as to what is the difference between Irish whiskey and "regular" whiskey. They also don't seem to know that bourbon is a whiskey, and yet whiskey is not always bourbon. And, here's an interesting one, Jack Daniels is NOT bourbon, because it's made in Tennessee. So I thought before you go embarrassing yourself in front of all those fireman and police at the bar this Friday, I'd share my encyclopedic knowledge of the subject.
Let's start with Scotch, just to get it out of the way. Coming as it does from Scotland, it's distilled from
"malt" (sprouted barley, dried in a drum) and flavored with burnt peat moss as part of its distilling
process, which since that moss is not to be found elsewhere makes Scotch its distinctive smoky self.
