Whiskey Recipes
Whiskey is alcoholic liquor which is distilled from grain, such as corn, rye, or barley. It contains approximately 40 to 60 percent ethyl alcohol by volume. Whiskey is also spelled as whisky sometimes. It is aged in wood. Whiskey is produced in many countries and there is whole lot of varieties available in the market.
Whiskey production requires raw materials like grain, yeast and water. Water requires being free of carbonates. Whiskey is produced by batch fermentation method. Its production undergoes various stages like malting, mashing, fermentation, distillation, blending and bottling. Malting of barley consists of soaking it in water until it is saturated. It is then spread out and sprinkled with water for three weeks. This is the time when it begins to sprout. During germination the enzyme amylase is produced.
Mashing consists of mixing cooked grain with malted barley and warm water and amylase which is present in malted barley converts the starch into sugars. After this, during mashing the mixture is converted into a turbid, sugar-rich liquid which is known as mash. After mashing the mixture is filtered to produce a sugar-rich liquid which is known as wort. This wort is then transferred to a fermenting vessel for fermentation where single-celled yeast organisms convert the sugars in the wort to alcohol. This then undergoes distillation.
The temperature of distillation and other factors determine the proportions of water, alcohol, in the final product. If it contains more than 95% alcohol it will have no flavor. This product is known as grain neutral spirit and is often used to add alcohol without adding taste during blending. After distillation water is added to reduce the alcohol content to 50-60%. This product then undergoes ageing. Whiskey generally takes 3 to 4 years to mature. Aging is a complex process. Blending involves mixing different batches of whiskey to produce a better flavor. A few blends contain only malt whiskeys. Blending is considered as the most difficult and critical process in producing premium Scotch whiskeys.
There are many different kinds of whiskey such as Scotch whiskeys, Irish whiskeys, Japanese whiskey, Canadian whiskey, American whiskey, Indian whiskey and many more. Many different kinds of whiskey are mixed together to make a different kind of whiskey. Even these are available in large varieties because there are many different manufacturers in the market. These are called as cocktails.
Whiskey cocktails are dark and the varieties of whiskey lend their distinct flavors to the mixers they are combined with resulting in a wide range of tastes and flavor. There are many recipes available for this. Not only cocktails but there are many food items one can make with whiskey as a recipe such as Apple, Blue Cheese & Bacon Cheesecake, whiskey sauce, Black Angus Whiskey Pepper Steak, Bourbon Three-Bean Bake, chocolate whiskey balls, cheddar whiskey fondue and many more. One can get a whole lot of information on different recipes.
They are available on line on different websites and also one can buy the cocktails through various websites of different manufacturers. Different food items containing whiskey as an ingredient serves to be a delicacy though excessive consumption of alcohol can harm many of the body’s essential organs like liver.
It also significantly increases a person’s chance of developing head and neck cancers.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 10:19 am and is filed under Whiskey Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.