Upon Whiskey Snobs and Blended Whiskey

[cowdery]

Straight corn whiskey is corn whiskey aged for at least two years in new uncharred or used barrels.

That's not what Elmer is talking about.

He means unaged corn whiskey, part of the non-whiskey component of the blend.

The Seagram's Seven label says "contains 60% grain spirits." The word "neutral" does not appear. It's not vodka. The spirit has a little flavor.

All ten of the Four Roses bourbons are combined for Four Roses Yellow Label. Single Barrel is, obviously, just one of the recipes. Small Batch is a mix of three or four of them, as is Bulleit, although they are all from the high rye mash.

Although in practice it can be complicated to get the taste of a blend just right, in principle they are simple. Take a good-tasting bourbon (or other straight) and dilute it with alcohol that has not been aged.

[afisher]

Hmm, doctoring cheap straight whiskey to taste like the good stuff sounds promising...note that the Tuthilltown guys are aging whiskey in teeny little barrels to get it to market faster. This probably screws up the barrel economics, though.

Slightly off-topic, I do know of one example of using gas chromatography to reverse-engineer fine spirits, although it uses traditional means rather than lab wizardry to reproduce them. Ted Breaux (http://www.bestabsinthe.com) has done it for absinthe, an especially interesting case because most production had ceased for about a century. Absinthe is a lot simpler than whiskey, though, despite the fact it uses more ingredients.

[bourbonv]

Chuck,
You may be right in what you say, but when Elmer actually said this he was talking about the 31/2 year old corn we were tasting. His quote was something along the lines of I feel the aged corn whiskey makes for a better blend than GNS. The next time I am in a liquor store, I am going to look for the AA blended whiskey and try it. I also want to look at the label and see what it says.

[cowdery]

They might be using straight corn, i.e., aged corn in their blended whiskey. The regs set a floor, not a ceiling.