“A Glass Apart,” author Fionnán O’Connor

edited May 2021 in General

Has anyone read this book?

I have made a few Irish style whiskeys and a couple of them have been heavy on the oats, like at 20% and aged on French Oak have turned out very nicely.

But I am intrigued as to the unusual mash bills that this guy might be turning up.

One of the good things about being where I am is there are no rules or typical products I should make. So I am doing lots of exploring.

Anyway has anyone read the book?

Comments

  • Does it have mashbills in it? Regardless, I'll add it to my list.

  • I am not certain if this book has but the Author is about to publish a book with mashbills in it which would be very interesting.

  • Love the root beer and bold spice you get from whole oats with the husk.

  • One of my favourite recipes is 25% oats. Although I have a hankering to try 50% wheat, 25% rye and 25% oats. It would need some beta glucanayse but it would taste amazing. I am sure this guy is going to find a few unusual grain bills like that when he publishes his latest work.

  • @grim. Thanks for the suggestion.

  • edited June 2021

    Well, my brother sent me some scans of the main parts of this book and it seems the Irish did things a bit different from the Scots. The used unmalted barley because it wasn't taxed. The almost all used M yeasts with some of the smaller distilleries also using ale yeast. They would almost use oats, as a minimum of 5%. The book also describes different distilleries who would take " wide cuts" i.e. going at max temp down deep into the tails, in a similar way to what @zymurgybob recommends. I use that technique myself when I make Irish whiskeys and you get more of the heavy congeners and vegetable oils.

    The book also said that once the Coffey distilling cap there were lots of arguments internal to the industry as some distillers, Jamesons and Bushmills, when with column stills and continuous distilling using coffey bubble caps, where as many chose to remain as traditional pot stillers. One thing the book said was that they almost all used feints in the spirit run, and if the did a third spirit run they would also use fients, often the feints from the second run, in the third run. A couple of other things that surprised me was some of them did single malts, Teelings is a modern Irish distiller that do the same. And also there were one or two that did use peat smoked barley but in very small percentages just for a bit of flavor. Not like the Scotts did so. Oh yes and up to about 1890 most of the Irish whiskey industry used french or Spanish barrels. Mainly because there were available.

    Anyway great book. The Author is supposed to completed a more comprehensive study of the old Irish distilling techniques inside 12 months. That will be well worth whatever the purchase price is.

  • @DonMateo said: One of my favourite recipes is 25% oats. Although I have a hankering to try 50% wheat, 25% rye and 25% oats. It would need some beta glucanayse but it would taste amazing. I am sure this guy is going to find a few unusual grain bills like that when he publishes his latest work.

    One of my last mash bills was 50% oat 50% wheat done with enzymes. It's been in the barrel over a year and my first take away is that is is almost too light. Actually for my taste it is. You just can't disregard what corn adds to a whiskey mash.

  • @floridacracker. Well in most cases I agree with you but I recently made a light wheat whiskey and put it on American Oak and it came out very nice after 6 months in a 100l barrel and I am waiting to see how it improves in the bottle. To each his own as far as flavor. I would say my best American style whiskey was 70% corn 20% wheat and 10 % rye. It was divine. Irish style whiskeys and American styles are just different and equally as good.

  • edited November 2021

    I just got this book physically and managed to read it. That sounds odd but this book has a really funny text style that is very thin with a light color ink and its very hard to read. That being said the book is gold. A few of the highlights was the extent to which a lot of styles of whiskey were similar between Ireland and Scotland prior to the industrial revolution. Ie prior to that in both countries they would have to burn peat and germinate grain.

    Another thing was the extent to which they Irish used unmalted grain not just because it was cheaper but because unmalted grains, specifically barley and oats contribute vegetable oils and flavors to the overall wash.

    And the last thing was the extent to which teh Irish whiskey industry was just huge between 1850 to 1910. At that time the Irish shipped 3 times as much whisky as the scotch industry. IN 1870 a 120,000 copper stripping still was built in Dublin and it was the largest in the world for a while.

    Anyway for a whiskey fanatic or people interested in the history of whiskey I highly recommend this book. Another thing too the author goes through various brands and their grain bills and distilling practices as well as common grain bills from various parts of Ireland at the time. I am convinced these old recipes run through a three chamber still will make for some fascinating and amazing whiskeys. So its well with the purchase if you can order it and its on Amazon.

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