
Moonshiners across the country employed various ingredients, including corn, rye, and sugar. Moonshiners in the past didn’t have an absolute definition for what constituted moonshine. Making moonshine started early in American history when the new US government imposed a tax on whiskey and spirits to help cover the American Revolution’s expenses.īecause of the rich heritage of moonshine recipes, many distillers opt to maintain the moniker ‘moonshine’ even though moonshine is legal and is taxed. Put simply, moonshine is untaxed whiskey – although that’s no longer the case. This makes more sense if you’ve ever eaten corn straight from the cob - it’s delicious, right? Because of its sweetness, bourbon is a fantastic liquor for many cocktails. Bourbon is commonly made in Kentucky Corn, Kentucky’s most prominent crop, has a high sugar concentration, explaining all that bourbon sweetness. If you compare bourbon to whiskey, you’ll find that bourbon is sweeter. Bourbon has to be matured in virgin charred oak barrels for a minimum of 2 years to be called “straight bourbon whiskey.” While all whiskey is bourbon, not all bourbon is whiskey. In 1964, Congress designated bourbon as America’s sole native spirit, and as an American product, it cannot be marketed as “bourbon” if made in another jurisdiction. The charred barrels are particularly important and significantly impact the spirit’s flavor. Still, Canadian whiskey is a distinct entity that is sometimes unfairly disparaged due to its status as a blended whisky.īourbon is a kind of whiskey that must be produced in the United States and must meet some basic criteria to be officially labeled, sold, or shipped as bourbon: it must be distilled from at least 51% corn, aged in charred oak barrels, enclosed for aging at no more than 125 proof, and packaged at 80 proof or more.


The primary distinguishing factor between the various types of alcohol is the type of grain used, production process, and country of origin. Whiskey is sometimes matured in wooden barrels, which contribute color and taste, and when it’s first distilled, it’s known as white whiskey or moonshine because of its clear tint. To begin with, whiskey (worded as whisky outside the United States) is a distilled alcohol manufactured from fermented grain mash- mostly corn, barley, wheat, rye, or other grains. You may have sampled a bourbon here, a whiskey there, or some good old moonshine in your friend’s barn, but what’s the difference? Despite this, only a percentage of consumers are aware of the various types of alcohol. Billions of glasses of alcohol are consumed across the planet daily.
