by gillmang » Fri Aug 01, 2008 8:47 am
Another thing is that some distillers added more barley malt than is necessary because they thought the bourbon tasted better that way. Charlie Thomasson's 1960's article on traditional bourbon manufacture, which I have often mentioned, makes this point. He states that big producers were cutting barley malt to the minimum and this affected the traditional palate in his view. M'Harry would have used not more than the minimum amount necessary. In his book, questions of yield and economy are everything. Rarely does he address palate except indirectly, e.g., when advising never to use bad yeast or soured fermentation vessels.
He states that his suggested 2/3rds corn 1/3rd rye is superior to any other mixture of rye and and corn or either on its own. This is solely because of factors connected to cost: corn was cheaper than rye and the cattle liked slops from corn mash better than one using some rye. He does state though that whiskey made from corn is as good as whiskey made from rye, so he did not disregard completely issues of quality. Still, palate, given certain minimums, came a long way down the line for what he was concerned with.
The historically derived bourbon mash is approximately, 2/3rds corn and 1/3rd rye. I am speaking generally since as we know rye in the mash is almost always rather less than 33% today. Still, overall we can see that M'Harry's favored recipe, no doubt practiced by many in his time, has become the standard recipe. And this is so, really, due to historical factors. Had rye been much cheaper than corn and cattle liked it, most whiskey today would be of the Old Overholt type.
Gary
Last edited by
gillmang on Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.