What makes tennessee whiskey

Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Featured Video. Read More. She is a Certified Tourism Ambassador and enthusiastic advocate for her adopted hometown of Louisville.

Contact Mint Julep Call us today at or email nashville mintjuleptours. Ready to Book a Tour? Shop tours. What Is Tennessee Whiskey? We have your guide to American Whiskey vs. What is whiskey? No, it does not. Nobody prohibits the rest of the US Bourbon industry from also filtering their product, and indeed this happens. However, it is rarely stated on the label because there is no universal agreement that filtration makes a whiskey better.

For some years now, Scottish producers have been successful with the claim that natural, non chill filtered Scotch Whisky tastes better than filtered Whisky. In we carried out a big blind trial, with more than 1, samples and more than connoisseurs and found only very small differences in quality between chill filtered and non chill filtered Whiskies.

Bourbon is not Scotch, and the results of the study may not apply to Bourbon. But distinguishing Tennessee Whiskey from Bourbons from other states based on filtration seems arbitrary and solely owed to marketing. The motivation behind this seems to be: "If you can't be leading in a category, open up your own category where you can be the leader. The definition of the Tennessee category got really out of hand in when the lobbying market players from Tennessee persuaded Governor Bill Haslam to sign a local bill stating that Tennessee Whiskey must be charcoal filtered.

After all, this had been the tradition for more than years. So an exception was written into the law. Because of this exception other market players, among them some new microdistilleries, then claimed that this arbitrary prescription of a production process violated their constitutional freedoms. But what about the extra maturation in maple casks? Thinking about these non- oak casks , the Jim Beam Distiller's Masterpiece comes to mind. If finishes are possible in Kentucky and Tennessee, is the notion that Bourbon must only be matured in American white oak wrong?

Indeed, the Bourbon Act only states that Bourbon must be matured in fresh American white oak casks for at least two years. It does not say what you can or should do with the Whiskey afterwards. Here the creativity of the Whiskey producers comes into play. Are such legal restrictions good or bad? Well, it is a balance between traditions and flavour innovations.

If you are too restrictive you won't convince new customers of your product, especially not connoisseurs looking for variety and young people looking for fancy drinks. However, if you are too innovative, long-time customers do not recognize your brand anymore and turn to competitors.

Take the cigarette brand Camel for example. Once among the market leaders, their advertisements featured a smoking globetrotter. When the brand started to use a plush camel, the customers preferred to ride a mustang in Marlboro Country. It only takes a few wrong decisions and little time to seriously damage a brand. Brown spirits are spirits aged in wood barrels, and include aged whiskies such as Tennessee Whiskey, bourbon, aged rums, and reposado tequila.

White spirits are un-aged spirits and include vodka, gin, moonshine, and un-aged rum or tequila. Whiskey, including Tennessee Whiskey, is any distilled spirit made from a fermented mash made of grain. Brandy, for example, is a distilled spirit made from fermented mash made of fruit, such as grapes or apples, and as such, is not whiskey. The four primary steps to make whiskey are mashing, fermenting, distilling, and aging.