Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Whisky or Bourbon?

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

What's the difference between whisky and bourbon? We'll tell you if you care to listen. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This is Josh, there's Chuck, there's Jerry. Let's get going with this edition of Short Stuff about the difference between whiskey and bourbon. Let's just talk. Yeah, you know, for someone who loves this stuff, I really didn't know a lot about it and I'm glad I do now. Yeah, there was a really big fact that we're going to get to that just knocked my socks clean off, man.

Ooh. Yeah, well, I guess just watch my feet and you'll see what you're going to do. I'll smell something. Are your socks off? Hey, my feet do not smell. They take great pride in that. All right, so we'll go ahead and tell you what whiskey is. Whiskey is a distilled spirit that you make from grain that is not distilled higher than

190 proof and it is exposed to oak as in, you know, sits in an oak container. That's whiskey. That's whiskey. If it's higher than 190, then you're not making whiskey. You're making what you would call a neutral spirit like vodka. Yeah, that's whiskey. So around the world, if you have Japanese whiskey, yum. If you have Irish whiskey, great.

Yum. Scotch whiskey. Delicious. Why not? All of those whiskies follow those same general guidelines or meet the same general criteria. I don't believe there's too many laws or anything restricting types of whiskey. I'm sure there are in Scotland, but we're talking about America in this episode. When you get to America, from what we've seen, we have the most strict extensive laws detailing

what can be considered a type of whiskey of anywhere in the world. Yeah, it's very much regulated by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Not the ATF. No, those firearms still mix with whiskey very well. Even though I said ATF three times, for some reason, oh, I know. You called out something that nobody heard, it's like you just reached out from a different dimension. I saw a funny tweet the other day that's been going around that says, the closest you will

come to knowing what it's like to be a ghost is something like yelling at podcasters who are trying to think of something that you know. That's amazing. That's great. I had that same experience as a listener. That's wonderful. Yes, not the ATF, the ATTTB. If you want to be labeled whiskey in America, you got to be aged in new charred oak containers

or barrels. You have to have a certain percentage of grain. If you're making rye, it has to be 51% rye. To be whiskey anywhere in the world, it has to be aged in oak, but for specifically an American straight whiskey, like American straight rye whiskey, it has to be aged in a charred oak, either barrel or container of some sort, but it has to be charred inside first. For at least two years, and it all has to come from the same state, it has to be distilled in the same state.

That's it. That's the law as far as an American straight whiskey goes. There's plenty of whiskies that follow that tradition or those laws, I guess. It gets even stricter though. If you add a couple more caveats to it, a couple more restrictions, a few more criteria, you suddenly have bourbon. Bourbon pops out of the mix. That's right.

If you want to be bourbon, you have to be 51% corn, and it has to be aged in new charred oak barrels or containers. But also, when you distill it, yeah, that was right. I just referred to another edit we took out. It can't be distilled at anything higher than 160 proof. That's right. Remember, we said 190 for whiskey, bourbon is down to 160. Right.

That's just the distillation. When they start to age it, they have to drop it down even further, I believe, to something like 140. They just do that with watering it down, literally watering it down, right? They literally water it down to, I think, 140, and then they put it in charred oak barrels for, I believe, four years for bourbon. That's right. That's a very popular saying, all bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.

It's very much true, and that's why that's the case. Bourbon is 51% corn, at least, doesn't go higher than 160 proof, and it's aged in charred oak barrels below 125 proof. Now watch my socks, Chuck. You might be saying, hey, guys, you left out probably the most important part. It has to be made in Bourbon County, Kentucky, or at least Kentucky. Well, friend, you'd be wrong on both parts because bourbon can be made anywhere in the States.

How did you think it had to be Kentucky? Yes. Oh, I didn't know that. Well, that explains why I didn't know how your socks would be knocked off. Right. It was more of a curl than actually knocking off, yeah. All right. Yeah, that's what I thought for a very, very long time, but no, you can make it anywhere.

In fact, in 1964, Congress declared bourbon as, quote, America's native spirit, so Congress likey bourbon. All right. Well, we likey takey break, and we're going to go do that right now and talk about Tennessee Whiskey, and I think you know what we're talking about right after this. Hey friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn?

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All right, Chuck, you said they think we know what we're talking about. We think they know what we're talking about. Yeah. If you're talking Tennessee whiskey, there are plenty of Tennessee whiskies, but we'll just go ahead and say the words Jack and Daniel. I was going to say, yeah, that's what I was going to say. You said Tennessee whiskey, you think Jack Daniel. I mean, it says Tennessee right on the label, but it turns out that Jack Daniel's Tennessee

whiskey, which is a straight American whiskey, you'd think that it's the only kind. It's not. It's actually Jack Daniel's follows a specific process, a set of criterion, very similar to the same set of criterion that Bourbon goes through. In fact, Jack Daniel's Tennessee American straight whiskey follows the same process that Bourbon making does, and in fact qualifies as a Bourbon, but then they add an extra step, and that's what makes it a Tennessee whiskey. That's right.

We should point out that they go all the way down to 140 proof just as a company rule, and they always age in new charred oak barrels, which it goes in at 125 proof or below. But then that extra step you were talking about is what they like to tout is the special ingredient, that special magic, is charcoal mellowing. Yeah, and it's actually another name for it is the Lincoln County process after Lincoln County, Tennessee, which is where Jack Daniel's distillery used to be, but basically they take huge stacks of maple wood logs and set them on fire, and then some guy stands there with the hose and keeps it from raging too much, and they turn that wood into charcoal,

then they take that charcoal, they pack it tightly into vats, and then they pour the distilled, unaged whiskey into those vats, and that charcoal kind of filters out some of the impurities. Yeah, and so you're thinking, well, it goes in clear and it comes out brown because of that charcoal. Wrong. Yeah, that's totally wrong, and in fact, it's a little bit like you're used to these brown liquors, if you've ever had like a clear rye or something, it's a little bit of a mind

tease. Yeah, that is not what you're going to say, but yes. You know what I mean? Agreed, agreed. It needs to be brown, and the reason it is brown, I believe, of course I have a terrible reputation on short stuff for just saying stuff offhand, it's totally wrong, but I believe it becomes brown from the charred oak aging process. I think that's right, right?

I hope so, I can't take any more emails. I'm pretty sure that's the case. Man, that whole Key West thing about the necrophile who kept his wife around, but it wasn't his wife, it was some woman that he stalked as a creeper. Oh, I didn't know that. Did you miss that? Yeah, we've been getting a lot of emails, so sorry everybody, we'll have to read a listener mail about it or something.

All right, well, they basically liken this whole process to, if you've ever used a water filter, they have charcoal in there, and it's sort of a similar concept. The whiskey comes out the same color as it goes in at this point, which is clear, and this is what makes Jack Daniel different than the rest. They're the ones who use that Lincoln County process. Right, so that's a different type of whiskey, that's Tennessee whiskey. There's bourbon, and technically Jack Daniels qualifies as a bourbon, and bourbon stripped of a couple of steps would be an American straight whiskey, and there you have it, that's whiskies.

There's one other fact though that I had no idea about, but I thought it was a nice little touch to add it to this article. I think you got this article from House of Works, right? Yeah, are you talking about the yeast? Oh, no, there's two facts, everybody. Well, I mean, if you wonder why different whiskies, you think, well, maybe they should all taste the same, the ingredients are different, depending on where you get the initial ingredients, it might taste different, and during the fermentation process, you're using, depending

on what kind of yeast to use, that's really going to affect the favor, what is going on with us today? I don't know, it's silly, silly short stuff Thursday. But at Jack Daniel, they use a yeast that they've been using the whole time, so they have this mother culture that they say dates back to prohibition, and they've been using the same mother culture, they go out in their lab every day, and they're like, that's why you get that special taste. Mother culture, it's a great band name.

Oh, it is. So yeah, so the yeast makes a big difference, but certainly, like even if you use the same exact yeast, if you stick that yeast on rye or corn mash, it's going to produce a totally different flavor anyway, so all these different steps and different ingredients produce these different flavored whiskies. The other fact that I was surprised, but also heartened to see, is that apparently women tend to appreciate higher proof whiskies and bourbons than men do. And supposedly, there's a woman named Kerry Richardson, who's president of the Bourbon

Women's Association in Louisville, Kentucky, who believes that it's because women apparently have a larger olfactory center than men, and so they're picking up more on all the stuff that's going on in these whiskey bottles than men do, and so the higher the proof, the more stuff that's going on in there, and women tend to appreciate that more. Pretty neat. It is pretty neat. And I did a rare phone look up during recording, then of course, there's a band called Mother Culture, at least one.

Good. Good for them. See, they listened to us in the past. Like a bunch of long hairs. That's exactly right. There's no way it was anything but, you know, a long hair band. So one other question, Chuck. Do you like the firewater whiskey or do you like smoother whiskey?

Or both? It's more proof. Yeah, but you know, the kind that's like, you can really feel it go all the way down your chest or the kind that's just like smooth sipping whiskey. I like both. I like the firewater because I drink it a little slower. I had a big night out on Tuesday, Emily and I went to see a band and I got into the whiskey a little bit, and it was just, you know, it was bullet and it was just going down so smooth.

That's the danger, you know? You drink it too fast. Yeah. I got myself a little hammered on a Tuesday night. Yeah, but you're not going to, you know, drink like high proof whiskey that's meant to just be nipped at, at like a show, you know? Yeah, you're right. Were you drinking it just on the rocks?

Sure. Nice. Well, I'm glad you had some. Is there another way? At a show? Yeah, like with Coke or something? Yeah. Yeah, not Coke.

It's already sweet. Maybe bitters and just club soda. Be good. Sure. I guess I could have done that, but I didn't get the impression they had that kind of stuff at this venue. I got you. Yeah.

All right. Well, that's it, huh? That's it. That's it for short stuff, as we said. That's it. That's it for short stuff, as we said, and I'll see you in the next one.