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It is often said that the barrel gives about 50-70% of the flavor to aged whiskey and it is true that the barrel gives the dominant flavor to whiskey. However, that leaves 30-50% for other sources to impact the flavor of the final product. Of this there is the mash bill. The grains used in a mash bill are an important flavor source. I thought I would look at this source of flavor.

A mash bill is going to be dominated by the grain used to make the type of whiskey being made. For Bourbon, it is corn and for rye whiskey it is rye. The type of corn or rye being used has an important impact on the flavor. The majority of Bourbons use yellow corn, but there are many distilleries using heirloom varieties of corn such as white, red or blue corn. Each variety has different flavor attributes such as the amount of oil found in the corn. Jeptha Creed Distillery uses Bloody Butcher red corn and Bill Thomas and I used Hickory Cane white corn to make our Fountain Run Bourbon. The impact of the Hickory Cane corn can be witnessed by comparing Fountain Run to Trackside Bourbon. They both use a similar mash bill but Trackside is made using yellow corn.

The percentage of grain also has an impact on the flavor. I was told while working at United Distillers that it takes a 3% shift in grain amounts to make a noticeable change in flavor. For example, when Ed Foote was hired at Stitzel-Weller Distillery, he was tasked with reducing the amount of malted barley in the mash bill and starting to use enzymes for full conversion of starch to sugar. He started with a reduction of 1% and stepped it up by another percent. He had a hard time noticing the change until he got to the 3% margin. 

This brings us to the other factor and that is the amount and type of flavor grains being used. Of course, there is a distinct difference in flavor when the mash bill uses rye or wheat as the flavor grain in Bourbon. Each grain type has its own flavor that contributes to the whiskey. Wheat gives a softer, spicy flavor to Bourbon whereas rye gives an herbal note to the whiskey. Wheat recipe Bourbon often has a black pepper note and rye recipe will have a rye grass and mint flavor. There are also distillers that use a small percentage of other grains such as oats in their mash bills that add flavor. There is also the amount of malted barley being used in the mash bill. Malt adds a nutty sweetness to the whiskey that you don’t get when there are enzymes being used to make the conversion. Potter Jane distillery refuses to make whiskey using enzymes because of the lack of flavor that enzymes contribute to the flavor. The type of malt being used also plays an important role in the flavor. Fountain Run was made using 3% chocolate malt and 12% distiller’s malt. I was told by Steve Beam before I had Fountain Run made, that you should use chocolate malt sparingly because it quickly overpowers the flavor of the whiskey. There are also other malts being used such as caramel malt. Hard Truth Distillery has made a rye whiskey with caramel malt that is quite good.

These are a few of my thoughts on mash bills. What are your thoughts?

Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller