The A to Z of Irish Whiskey
- malt
Grain that has been allowed to germinate before all further growth is arrested.
During the malting process, the grain is soaked in water and germination begins. This produces an enzyme that will later convert the grain's starch to fermentable sugar. Germination is halted quickly by heating in a kiln so the starch is not used up in plant growth instead.
Malt can be "peated" or not. One traditional method of drying the malt was over an open peat fire. The smoke imparted its own taste to the malt. This peating can be replicated in modern kilns, if desired.
Malt can also refer to the whiskey made entirely from malted grain.
- malt whiskey
- also malt
Whiskey produced entirely from malted grain.
Two Irish distilleries - Bushmills and Cooley - routinely produce malt whiskey. All of their bottled whiskeys are either malt only or malt whiskey blended with grain whiskey.
Midleton can make batches of malt whiskey and has done but it prefers to use pure pot still whiskey in its brands.
- NAS
- no age statement (NAS)
A basic whiskey that does not declare an age.
You won't see this on a bottle but the informal abbreviation, NAS, appears in online discussions when the name of the whiskey might be ambiguous on its own. "Jameson", for example, might refer to one of a number of whiskeys or to the brand itself. "Jameson NAS" explicitly refers to the basic Jameson whiskey that doesn't declare an age on its label.
"NAS" also carries a connotation of the cheapest in a range of whiskeys. So while the Jameson range also includes Jameson Gold and Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve, neither of which carries an age statement, the use of "NAS" is reserved for the plain old Jameson whiskey you can find in any supermarket or bar.
- patent still
see Coffey still
- pure pot still
Irish whiskey made in a traditional copper pot still from a mix of malted and unmalted grains.
On the face of it, "pure pot still" means no more than "distilled entirely in copper pot stills". By convention, however, it also signifies an Irish whiskey made to a traditional recipe that includes unmalted grain.
These days pure pot still is made entirely from malted and unmalted barley but until recent decades unmalted wheat, oats and rye formed a small part of the mix too.
This recipe is distinctly Irish. Scottish distilleries, for example, use only malted barley in their pot stills.
Midleton is the only distillery in Ireland that makes pure pot still whiskey. It is mainly used in Irish Distillers' blends like Jameson, Powers, Midleton and so on. Two whiskeys (apart from occasional limited releases) consist entirely of pure pot still whiskey - Green Spot and Redbreast.
Cooley has muddied the waters by adding "pure pot still" to the labels of some of their single malts. This has not gone down well with the whiskey purists.
