The Terroir of Whiskey

I thought I knew a fair bit about whisky until I read this book. The science is here–and how often do you see that in a book on spirits?–but as a means to an end: to make whisky more individual, more expressive of place. The bulk of the world's whisky is manufactured in anonymous, large plants such that the 'handmade' products of relatively small distilleries, epitomized in Scotland and Kentucky/Tennessee in the U.S.A., are cherished by enthusiasts.

Yet even with these, the major ingredients–cereals of different kinds, barley in the case of Scotch–are almost always grown and processed far away… show more.

Can spirits have terroir, or does it only apply to wine? Texas distiller Rob Arnold travels around the world's whiskey distilleries to investigate - well, not having bottomless pockets or time, he goes to distilleries in the USA, Ireland, and Scotland.

As well as being the master distiller at the TX Distillery, he's also doing a PhD in plant breeding and genetics at Texas A&M University. He approaches this as a scientist - first you have to know what you mean by terroir before you can decide whether whiskey has it or not.

I found the first half of the… show more.

Terroir of whiskey? Come on! It’s just distilled grain, right? Rob Arnold begs to disagree, vigorously arguing the case for terroir in whiskey. His thesis that the areas producing the raw materials for whiskey have a profound impact on drink’s flavor and character is a difficult one to test, but he manages in this book to clearly lay out the science of such terroir. Along the way, there are brilliant examples of whiskey distilling, the role of ingredients in whiskey making, and the cultural and social contexts of the beverage. His book sometimes reads like a detective story, making… show more.