White dog

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Clear white corn whiskey from Georgia.

White Dog or White Whiskey or Legal Moonshine or White Lightning denotes whiskey that has only matured a few minutes, days or weeks after the distillation. The spirit is clear. In Europe it is not allowed to be sold as whiskey, as there is a minimum storage time for whiskey of three years.

White Dog has become popular in the United States since 2005. Microdistilleries are particularly active here, which can compensate for the revenue gap by selling “fresh” whiskey until they can sell the first whiskey that has been stored for years. White Dog is often advertised as being made from authentic Moonshine recipes from the time of Prohibition . However, most Prohibition Moonshine was made from table sugar with light grain additives, making it much closer to rum than whiskey.

Manufacturing

White whiskey is a necessary intermediate step in the making of any whiskey. It is created by burning the mash . The whiskey only turns brown and takes on its typical taste when it is stored in oak barrels. While whiskey has to be stored for at least three years according to the regulations in Europe and therefore there is no "white whiskey" under this name in Europe, in the United States storage in an oak barrel without a time limit is sufficient. White whiskey is therefore often stored in oak barrels for no longer than half an hour, but the storage time can be up to several months.

White whiskey differs from vodka , which is made from similar ingredients and not stored, in the way it is made. White whiskey is distilled to a lower alcohol content at other temperatures. There are also fewer distillation processes, so that the white whiskey retains significantly more of the grain taste than the purposefully neutral-tasting vodka. White whiskey is also often stored for at least a few weeks or months and thus takes on some barrel aroma.

In the United States, white whiskey is mostly - but not necessarily - a corn whiskey , which means that the proportion of corn in the mash underlying the distill is over 80%. It is often sold in mason jars , glass containers that are used in the USA to store food and are therefore often found in large quantities in every rural household.

taste

White Dog's taste is described as spicy and sweet. It is used as an ingredient in cocktails because it has more flavor than vodka but is lighter than whiskey, or at the beginning of whiskey tastings to have a comparative taste without the effects of storage. While the number of repeat drinkers of pure White Dog is comparatively low, it is mainly used as a cocktail ingredient in classic cocktails - many of these cocktails were invented to cover up the bad taste of illegal moonshine during the time of prohibition.

history

In the United States, much of the whiskey used in the 18th and 19th centuries was white whiskey, which was bottled and sold immediately after the fire. This saved the burning farmers labor and storage space. The whiskey itself was then often made drinkable with water or other additives. It wasn't until the 19th century that the technique of storing whiskey longer in burned oak barrels to improve its taste began to prevail. Even if all distillers made white whiskey as an intermediate step in production, they no longer put it on the market.

White whiskey experienced a small renaissance at the time of Prohibition in the USA. Although most of the black distillers made spirits based on table sugar or rotten fruit rather than grain, there was also illegal whiskey production. In order to get the product out of the house as quickly as possible and not create any treacherous stores, it was delivered white and unstored, the drinkers then blended it with water and other additives. In rural areas of the United States there are still numerous black markers who still illegally produce clear alcohol - but mostly still based on sugar.

White whiskey experienced a new renaissance through the numerous new microdistilleries since the turn of the millennium. On the one hand, they try to set themselves apart from the large corporations with new, unfamiliar whiskeys, on the other hand, white whiskey is a product that can be sold immediately after the distillation and does not require an investment over several years before it brings income. Georgia Moon was the first successful white whiskey on the market . The success of the category sell since 2013 but most of the large distilleries own White Whiskey under different labels: Jim Beam sold Jacob's Ghost (matured of one year), at Maker's Mark is the Maker's White , Jack Daniels offers an unaged Tennessee Rye to and Buffalo Trace sells white dog whiskey . The most popular white whiskey in 2012 was Junior Johnson's Midnight Moon with 120,000 cases sold, made by the Piedmont Distillers of North Carolina .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Daniel Yaffe: Drink More Whiskey: Everything You Need to Know About Your New Favorite Drink! Chronicle Books, 2013 ISBN 1452126348 , p. 30
  2. ^ A b Daniel Yaffe: Drink More Whiskey: Everything You Need to Know About Your New Favorite Drink! Chronicle Books 2013, ISBN 1452126348 , p. 32
  3. ^ Warren Bobrow: Whiskey Cocktails: Rediscovered Classics and Contemporary Craft Drinks Using the World's Most Popular Spirit Fair Winds Press, 2014 ISBN 1592336396 , p. 69
  4. ^ Warren Bobrow: Whiskey Cocktails: Rediscovered Classics and Contemporary Craft Drinks Using the World's Most Popular Spirit. Fair Winds Press 2014, ISBN 1592336396 , p. 19
  5. ↑ a b Rosi Mittenbuler: Putting the White Dog to Sleep - Unaged whiskey helps young microdistilleries keep afloat. There's just one problem: It tastes awful. Slate , March 8, 2013
  6. ^ A b Jaime Joyce: Moonshine: A Cultural History of America's Infamous Liquor. Zenith Press 2014, ISBN 0760345848 , p. 126
  7. ↑ Jaime Joyce: Moonshine: A Cultural History of America's Infamous Liquor. Zenith Press 2014, ISBN 0760345848 , p. 124

literature

  • Jaime Joyce: Moonshine: A Cultural History of America's Infamous Liquor Zenith Press, 2014 ISBN 0760345848