A comment on drinks
Sep. 14th, 2003 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasThe "manhattan" is a drink made with whiskey and sweet vermouth.
Except it wasn't always made with blended whiskey. When the manhattan was invented, it was made with rye whiskey. Rye tastes different than just plain old whiskey.
Let me back up and define terms for those of you who don't drink: "whiskey", or "whisky" is a general term for an alcohol which starts with malted (semi-sprouted) grain, which is fermented, then distilled, then put into wood and aged. As you can imagine, this can lead to all sorts of liquors that have very little in common with one another. At one end, you've got "moonshine" -- a raw spirit from corn (maize), hardly aged at all. It's clear. They sort of skip the aging step, which is where whiskeys pick up color. I suppose an argument could be made that moonshine isn't even really whiskey, because it's not aged, but, well, I wouldn't want to argue with someone mean enough to drink that stuff. It's vile. It's a little like drinking lighter fluid, only not quite as tasty.
On the other end, you've got single-malt Scotches, for instance. They're also whiskeys, or, actually, whiskys. Scottish distilleries don't use the "e". Probably has to do with tarriffs or something. They have to import all their "e"'s from overseas, so the cost is prohibitive, or something. Those add in a couple other steps, like roasting over peat fires, and adding the blood of an English baby, Something like that, anyway. A scotch tastes like scotch, not like anything else. I've said that it tastes "a little like you poured equal parts apple juice and rubbing alcohol into an ashtray, except it's good."
There are also Irish whiskeys, which have a distinctive process and taste.
In the United States, you've got bourbon, from Bourbon County, Kentucky, Tennesee Whisky, which tastes pretty much exactly like bourbon, but don't tell people from either Tennessee or Kentucky that, and rye, about which more later.
Then there's Canadian whiskey. "Whiskey with no qualifier" probably means Canadian whiskey. It's sorta the default whiskey. Seagram's Seven is an example of it. It mixes really well with ginger ale, which is why Seagram's makes ginger ale, and Canada Dry is a ginger ale. A "highball" is "whiskey and ginger ale." That drink became so popular that now, ANY drink which consists of a liquor and a mixer is called a highball (rum and coke, gin and tonic, Cape Codder, screwdriver, whatever).
But, frankly, and apoligies to any Canadian chauvanists reading this, Canadian whiskey is pretty boring, really.
A manhattan is "whiskey and sweet vermouth." That means Canadian blended whiskey. I've had them a couple times, and never really seen what the big deal is.
Anyway, then I read somewhere that the manhattan was originally made with rye whiskey, not Canadian whiskey.
Rye whiskey is almost unknown in the United States. And it's only made in the United States, so it's even less well known everywhere else. I've never managed to get it in a bar, and I only know of two liquor stores in the area that stock it regularly. I only know of two manufacturers of it: Old Overholt (the brand I drink), and Wild Turkey makes one.
Rye is made with at least 51% rye -- the grain. It's sweeter than other whiskeys -- about as sweet as some of the sweeter scotches. But it's a simpler taste than scotch, without scotch's smoky taste. I really like rye.
So I made Lis buy me some rye and some sweet vermouth, and I tried making a manhattan with that.
Okay. NOW I get it. Yum.
It's a completely different drink than a normal manhattan. It's orders of magnitude better.
Except it wasn't always made with blended whiskey. When the manhattan was invented, it was made with rye whiskey. Rye tastes different than just plain old whiskey.
Let me back up and define terms for those of you who don't drink: "whiskey", or "whisky" is a general term for an alcohol which starts with malted (semi-sprouted) grain, which is fermented, then distilled, then put into wood and aged. As you can imagine, this can lead to all sorts of liquors that have very little in common with one another. At one end, you've got "moonshine" -- a raw spirit from corn (maize), hardly aged at all. It's clear. They sort of skip the aging step, which is where whiskeys pick up color. I suppose an argument could be made that moonshine isn't even really whiskey, because it's not aged, but, well, I wouldn't want to argue with someone mean enough to drink that stuff. It's vile. It's a little like drinking lighter fluid, only not quite as tasty.
On the other end, you've got single-malt Scotches, for instance. They're also whiskeys, or, actually, whiskys. Scottish distilleries don't use the "e". Probably has to do with tarriffs or something. They have to import all their "e"'s from overseas, so the cost is prohibitive, or something. Those add in a couple other steps, like roasting over peat fires, and adding the blood of an English baby, Something like that, anyway. A scotch tastes like scotch, not like anything else. I've said that it tastes "a little like you poured equal parts apple juice and rubbing alcohol into an ashtray, except it's good."
There are also Irish whiskeys, which have a distinctive process and taste.
In the United States, you've got bourbon, from Bourbon County, Kentucky, Tennesee Whisky, which tastes pretty much exactly like bourbon, but don't tell people from either Tennessee or Kentucky that, and rye, about which more later.
Then there's Canadian whiskey. "Whiskey with no qualifier" probably means Canadian whiskey. It's sorta the default whiskey. Seagram's Seven is an example of it. It mixes really well with ginger ale, which is why Seagram's makes ginger ale, and Canada Dry is a ginger ale. A "highball" is "whiskey and ginger ale." That drink became so popular that now, ANY drink which consists of a liquor and a mixer is called a highball (rum and coke, gin and tonic, Cape Codder, screwdriver, whatever).
But, frankly, and apoligies to any Canadian chauvanists reading this, Canadian whiskey is pretty boring, really.
A manhattan is "whiskey and sweet vermouth." That means Canadian blended whiskey. I've had them a couple times, and never really seen what the big deal is.
Anyway, then I read somewhere that the manhattan was originally made with rye whiskey, not Canadian whiskey.
Rye whiskey is almost unknown in the United States. And it's only made in the United States, so it's even less well known everywhere else. I've never managed to get it in a bar, and I only know of two liquor stores in the area that stock it regularly. I only know of two manufacturers of it: Old Overholt (the brand I drink), and Wild Turkey makes one.
Rye is made with at least 51% rye -- the grain. It's sweeter than other whiskeys -- about as sweet as some of the sweeter scotches. But it's a simpler taste than scotch, without scotch's smoky taste. I really like rye.
So I made Lis buy me some rye and some sweet vermouth, and I tried making a manhattan with that.
Okay. NOW I get it. Yum.
It's a completely different drink than a normal manhattan. It's orders of magnitude better.
Re: ObGeekage
Date: 2003-09-14 11:52 pm (UTC)"uisce beatha" is, however, what whiskey is called by the tourist marketing board in Ireland, the same way that leprechauns wear green, rather than their traditional dress, and shamrock looks suspiciously like its bigger clover cousins. (Leprechauns traditionally wear mixed primary colours, in case you're curious).
"uisce beatha" in conversational use means something produced illegally which isn't poitin. You had the spelling quite correct; it's the spelling of "fuisce" I'm unsure of, since I don't know what is taught as standard.
Re: ObGeekage
Date: 2003-09-15 04:39 am (UTC)Hm. My prof doesn't teach strictly from book learning or anything. He's normally at a university at Nova Scotia, and he's spent lots of time in the Irish-speaking parts of Ireland (such as they still are) as well. He wasn't one for giving us Irish Tourist Board usages when he knew the conversational instead.
(Leprechauns traditionally wear mixed primary colours, in case you're curious).
I'm aware, thanks.
"uisce beatha" in conversational use means something produced illegally which isn't poitin.
It wouldn't surprise me to find this usage current in some places also.
Re: ObGeekage
Date: 2003-09-15 06:23 am (UTC)There's some apparent disagreement over whether "uisce beatha" was originally brought into Irish out of Latin (from aqua vitae) or merely from the same Indo-European roots. The sources I've found more reliable in the past prefer the second theory.
It's pretty likely that by now the usage you're familiar with has more conversational currency since a recent borrow-back is more likely to be heard from speakers, I would think.
Re: ObGeekage
Date: 2003-09-15 09:43 am (UTC)I wonder what the Gaelic for whisk(e)y is? Could that be where the American spelling "uisge bagh" comes from? Any Scots around to let us know?
Re: ObGeekage
Date: 2003-09-15 10:36 am (UTC)OED
Date: 2003-09-15 11:47 am (UTC)And since the etymology uses images to represent some of the charaacters, here's free access to the OED entry usquebaugh for the next three days
Re: OED
Date: 2003-09-16 03:12 am (UTC)Re: ObGeekage
Date: 2003-09-16 03:16 am (UTC)Also, I was wondering whether you were ever taught the whole bean mna mnai mna mnaimh thing, as some people who learned their Irish formally (rather than as a first language were). You may not have been, because it's kind of out of date now according to the official curriculum in Ireland. But you may have been, because some speakers still use it.
Re: ObGeekage
Date: 2003-09-16 05:01 am (UTC)Also, I was wondering whether you were ever taught the whole bean mna mnai mna mnaimh thing
Yeah, I believe I was. It probably is out of date now, then, since I took those classes about...gah...eight years ago now. :) What're speakers using these days?
My source material consists of Too Many Books plus a few internet sites that most of the folk I've met seem to agree are useful. If you do a google search on any Irish word, at some point you will turn up lincolnu.edu's Focal An Lae site, which is spiffy. There're oodles of other good ones, some of which will be more useful to you than me at the moment since your fluency is bound to be leaps ahead of mine at this point. Must...take...refresher...course.
Re: ObGeekage
Date: 2003-09-16 07:09 am (UTC)"bean mna mnai mna mnaimh" is what my mother's generation was taught, though her younger sisters weren't. Now the nouns are standardised (Irish school curriculum post-1955) more like in English than Latin, so although bean and mna are still around, they are both treated as entirely seperate words. The forms mnai and mnaimh are almost completely gone, though I have heard some speakers from Cork use them and it's possible that some teachers in Gaeltacht areas condone their use, similar to the way "chim" and "chifigh" are being brought back into currency (or were when I was at school, 1983-96 approx). I don't know whether you were taught "bean" and "mna" seperately, or together as part of a old-vocab revival (which wouldn't be a bad idea, since different whattycallems in nouns are useful).
I don't have much in the way of Irish language reference books, since most of what was around when I was looking was Dineen-based and the rest was relying heavily on the Connemara / Dublin focussed standardisation, which annoys me much the same way that ignoring American or Hiberno or Scottish English in favour of Estuary English does. Thankfully, the OED just includes everything, as long as it has appeared in at least two published works (yes, even if it's by the same author - I know someone who had a zoological term added because it was in her thesis and one of her reference books).