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and more richly embewed with the desirable whiskey congeners, so each batch of whiskey is
incrementally improved over the previous.
When distillers run their first batch, when they have no feints yet, the whiskey flavour is
insipid and unbalanced and tastes of raw alcohol. But as they run subsequent batches,
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carrying over the feints from their previous batches, the whiskey gets better and better with
each batch.
Most distillers do not recycle all the feints on-hand through subsequent spirit-runs. They
include a certain measure, and each distiller s measure becomes a main part of the unique
signature of that distiller s whiskey. Another important part of defining a particular
distiller s unique product is how late the middle-run is allowed to bleed into the tails.
At the time that the tails bleed into the middle-run (and visa versa), the percent alcohol of the
emerging distillate begins to trail off quite rapidly. Most of the middle-run will come out at
close to 95% alc/vol. But, towards the end it drops quite sharply, and the distillate is
generally not collected into the middle-run below about 70% alc/vol. This sharp drop in
alcohol concentration is used as an indicator to identify where the middle-run ends and the
tails begin for a particular whiskey. An early middle-run would end while the percentage
were still 85-90%; a medium middle-run would end between 75-85%; and a late middle-run
would end between 70-75%. Some Scottish malt whiskeys go below 70%, and there s the
odd one that goes as low as 60%.
Unfortunately, for small operations such as we are concerned with it s too costly to measure
the percent alcohol of the small samples (i.e. 2-3 ml) that would need to be measured in order
to determine the alcohol content of the emerging distillate. In large-scale commercial
operations, it s a simple matter to collect a 250-ml sample of emerging distillate, measure the
percent alcohol, and empty it into the receiver.
So, for small operations the transition points between the phases are determined by collecting
a few drops of the emerging distillate on a spoon and tasting it. This is definitely more of an
art than a science and practically defies description, but once an operator has experienced
these transition points two or three times it becomes very clear how this works. In order to
facilitate this familiarization, tables with the times, flow rates, and volumes of each phase for
actual distillation runs of batches of corn mash as described in this text is included in the
Procedure section to guide a first-time distiller by indicating the length of time and volume to
expect for each phase. This puts the distiller in the correct ballpark for each transition point
so they can familiarize themselves with the taste changes that occur across the transitions.
Even if a distiller simply duplicated the volumes on the above-mentioned tables in their run
of corn mash, they would produce a reasonably good Kentucky-style corn whiskey.
Even in this modern day of advanced instrumentation, commercial whiskey distillers still rely
on tasting the emerging distillate to do the final determination of the transition points.
According to North American definitions for whiskey (not official U.S. Government
nomenclature), the following guidelines describe and name the different whiskey styles.
Canadian Style: If the middle-run is ended while the emerging distillate is still between 85-
90% alc/vol, the whiskey flavour is very mellow and smooth and lacks strong definition of
the character of the grain used to make the whiskey.
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Kentucky Style: If the middle-run is allowed to continue until the emerging distillate is
between 75-85% alc/vol, the whiskey flavour takes on a very pronounced and distinctive
character that clearly reveals the character of the grain used.
Tennessee Style: If the middle-run captures emerging distillate that s below 75% alc/vol
(usually no lower than 70%), the whiskey flavour is very strong and distinctive, and has a
sharp bite to it that is very much an acquired taste. However, most whiskey drinkers
eventually come to prefer this style as their palate for whiskey matures. Almost all the Irish
whiskies and Scottish single-malt whiskies fall into this category (although I m certain their
distillers would have a different name for the style).
Another dimension to whiskey character is whether it is early cut , late cut , or narrow
cut . To understand early, late, and narrow cut whiskey, picture the entire output from the
spirit-run as a time-line progressing from foreshots, through heads, middle-run, and tails.
Now, look at the middle-run as a cut from that time-line.
An early cut would be a middle-run that began earlier and ended earlier on that time-line.
This would produce a whiskey with more of the early congeners and less of the late
congeners.
Similarly, a late-cut would be a middle-run that began later and ended later on the time-line.
The whiskey would have more of the late congeners and less of the early congeners.
As for a narrow cut, the middle-run is started later and ended earlier, making the middle-run
smaller and therefore narrow on the time-line.
Early cut whiskies tend to have more of the distinctive character of the grain (e.g. corn, rye).
Late cut whiskies tend to be sharper and have more bite. Narrow cut whiskies are smoother
and mellower and have less distinctive flavour and less bite.
As for the dimension of whiskey flavour contributed by the proportion of feints added to the
spirit-run, the more feints the more body and richness the whiskey flavour will have. In
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