by gillmang » Sun Jun 11, 2006 7:10 am
Thanks for that.
On whether the "Canadian" taste may have been brought by Loyalists to Canada before bourbon and rye became the red layer whiskeys we know today: I mentioned earlier that modern Scotch grain and Canadian whisky may resemble the bruited (by Mike) pre-bourbon oak aged American whiskey. Of course, I know that M'Harry used what we call today true bourbon and rye mashes, and generally used a pot still (although this is not as important as may first seem the case). A better analogy to the pre-bourbon may be Michter's U.S. No. 1 which apparently is a bourbon mash product aged in reused barrels (although some feel it might have been flavored with something). I still don't feel that my analogy to, say Seagram 5 Star or Barrel Select is that far out of line though. When discussing his clarifying processes (again the leaching of new spirit through flannel, cloth and/or maple charcoal) M'Harry states at one point the clarified whiskey will "scarcely have the taste of whiskey". So he was able to get a fairly neutral product even then. The commercial impulse was to satisfy the market for clean spirit for blending with brandy, beer, rum etc. There is some evidence too in M'Harry that such super-refined spirit was regarded by him as superior to common whiskey although this is difficult to tell with certainty.
M'Harry's early form of neutral-type spirit aged in new or other non-charred oak might have been the first brown vodka. One can perhaps deduce this from his imitation version: adding parched wheat or caramel (in small amounts - he did not add a lot) to green, bland distillate would produce a kind of brown vodka.
John theorised some time ago that Loyalists and other Americans who came early to Canada brought straight rye and it later transmogrified to Hiram Walker's Canadian Club and that type whisky. This was (and is) an interesting thought provoking theory. But did they come so early that they brought not red layer whisky which later got debased but an American pre-bourbon, and that taste has endured here to this day? (I don't know if whisky was made in Canada before the Loyalists came, that is another question).
Modern U.S. corn whiskey may be the closest U.S. survival to this pre-bourbon. The barrel, being reused, would impart little, but some, flavor. Maybe Michter's U.S. No. 1 is another example but possibly M'Harry's oak-aged pre-bourbon was even more neutral tasting than those. I wouldn't say for example that those two products "scarcely taste like whiskey"! Then too, what those words meant in M'Harry's time may be an open question. His regular common whiskey might have been quite congeneric or feinty.
Still however, I can't exclude that at least when using new barrels as distillers did sometimes and the product was permitted to stand for a while, a bourbon-like drink emerged. Because, M'Harry said, the new barrel gave the whiskey "color" and "some taste". A true bourbon only 1-2 years old would have "some taste". Also, modern malt whiskies aged in reused American wood don't take much colour even after years in cask: we have all seen the so-called "white wine" whiskies which are almost white in color. Malt whisky gets color mainly through some influence to sherry cask wood or by addition (where lawful) of caramel, or by very long age (longer than what M'Harry was thinking of). Anyway the question comes back to whether the barrels or hogsheads which held product for a while and produced an "aged taste" in his words were charred or not. Some distillers probably did make some whiskey of this type for their own use or tried to imitate that specific taste but it seems not to have emerged as a recognised style by 1809. Certainly M'Harry does not use the word "char" or its variants or discuss the effects the process had on whiskey or talk about the sweeter taste red layer whiskey has.
I can't recall where I read that some people think whiskey was left to stand in disused mashing and fermentation wooden vessels that had truly been charred, and this lead to bourbon's development systematically. It might have been in Carson or Waymack and Harris that I read this. If it is true that Harrison Hall (we are talking 1813 or so) used charred mashing or fermentation vessels because of a flavor improvement (although over such a short period as it takes to make new whiskey?) one can see that such vessels, once past their prime, would have become storage vessels. One sees this today in breweries and distilleries, vats and tanks are used ultimately for holding purposes or storing finished product. And when noticing that the storing of whiskey in charred disused vessels of this type improved the product, distillers or middlemen started to put it in purpose-charred barrels to get the effect with predictability. This is entirely possible. Also, in the hot summer at least, I doubt a few puffs of smoke would truly sweeten a hogshead. There would have been bacterial and other flavors hard to clean. The word "handful" does trouble me though now that Mike has pointed this out to me. But you know I'm still thinking of this. If a bitsy handful of straw was all M'Harry was talking about why would it be necessary to turn over a large cask? True, it would trap the smoke but if there is so little to start with, why not throw a bit more straw in the cask and leave it upturned? Maybe to avoid burning the cask..? Anyway this "handful" matter does perturb me, like it does Mike, and I too now can't get my head around it, unless M'Harry was using the term loosely for some reason.
I repeat though that I have read elsewhere that straw was used in early days to char casks (i.e., once it was decided, whenever that was, to purpose-char casks). I can't recall where I read this but the Krafft, Hall or Boucherie books, or other, later 1800's books on distilling, may contain more information on this. I think the flavour of straw would be imparted to a degree to the char layer and this may have added another element to early bourbon flavor that is now lost. Amongst the many possibilities of a further experimental line (further than what BT did recently), one could envisge whiskey aged in straw-charred barrels. I think the experiment would be well worth doing Mike but further textual evidence of how straw was used exactly to sweeten in the early 1800's would be helpful.
Gary
Last edited by
gillmang on Mon Jun 12, 2006 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.