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Brandy tastes just as much like wine as whiskey tastes like beer. Thus, in my opinion, they taste nothing alike. You can tell that it was made from grapes, but just like with whiskey, the color comes entirely from the barrels it's aged in. Grappa is another distilled beverage made from wine...

Bushmills is one of those distilleries that I really like pretty much everything they make. I saw one of their 400th year anniversary bottles in Napa for around $150 or $200 or so (it was about a year ago, so I don't remember the exact price). I was tempted, but nah... Just stuck with the usual...

What are you attempting to achieve? If you just dissolved sugar in water, it's not going to have any of the nutrients that yeast needs. Grains such as barley naturally contain tons of nutrients that yeast thrive on, which is why you normally don't have to add yeast nutrients to beer (although...

Why would you dissolve 13 pounds of sugar into water? :confused: Even if you fermented that with a yeast capable of going up to 20% ABV or so, the resulting drink would be so disgusting I doubt anyone could enjoy it...

Are you planning on giving away bottles of your liqueur to a lot of people? I wonder because five gallons sounds like way, way, WAY too much. Regardless, 5 gallons of brandy is going to be ridiculously expensive. Brandy and vodka are both sold in 750ml bottles (brandy is pretty much never sold...

The zest of fresh lemons steeped in some kind of neutral grain alcohol/rectified spirit (or you can use regular vodka, but the more traditional limoncellos generally start with a pretty high percentage of alcohol - i.e. not 40%) for generally a month or so, then mixed with simple syrup...

I'm making a traditional limoncello myself right now. Totally traditional. About 3 weeks now. I didn't even know there were alternate versions. EtchyLives's looks pretty interesting, though.

Drinking liquor in the 50s and 60s would definitely be better than drinking liquor in the 10s, 20s, and 30s. To some degree, "room temperature" is kind of a vague term, but it generally means 60s and 70s (some people even define "room temperature" as a very specific temperature such as 68 or 72...

Like red wine, pretty much everyone recommends that you drink your spirits at room temperature, but there are some liqueurs where it is recommended that they are drunk chilled (I've never heard of spirits where this is recommended). If you do have to drink them chilled, though, it is best to...

There is no agreement on this, by the way. I've been to several different distilleries and been told wildly differing things. Personally, I never swirl ANYTHING except wine. I don't swirl beer. I don't swirl cider. I don't swirl liqueurs. I don't swirl whiskey. I don't swirl absinthe. I don't...

My friend from Ireland brought me a bottle of Writers Tears about two weeks ago when she was visiting the US. It's pretty good.

Definitely bourbon (although rye is tasty too, but DEFINITELY not Canadian whiskey). Sweet vermouth if you have it (sometimes I only have dry vermouth, so I'll use that if I don't have sweet vermouth). Two dashes of Angostura bitters. A maraschino cherry. No ice (should be chilled in a cocktail...

California taxes don't really bother me at all, but that's probably because the San Francisco Bay Area's ridiculous sky-high (and going higher) real estate prices have been driving me insane since I moved out here. I do drink a lot of whiskeys other than Buffalo Trace, but I always make sure...

Woodford Private Reserve and Knob Creek are also great bourbons. Blanton's and Old Scout are excellent as well. A few others would be John Bowman, Elmer T. Rare, and Weller's. Buffalo Trace is one of my all-time favorite whiskies. Here in California it's usually about $25 for 750ml...

I've only had Maker's Mark 46 once and I don't remember exactly how different it tasted from regular Maker's Mark. Some of the good bourbons I've bought recently would be Elijah Craig 18 year, Basil Hayden's, and Jefferson's Reserve, but I can't speak to whether they're similar to Maker's Mark...

You can. And everyone does. The average person on the street probably won't know the legal specifics of what differentiates whiskey from tequila or brandy, but anyone who drinks spirits will know the difference. You can't make brandy from corn. You can't make tequila from grapes. You can't...

I know you're being facetious, but there is nowhere near that much whiskey made in the US each year. For one thing, North American white oak (as in, Quercus alba) is the most common species of oak in eastern North America (New England, the Midwest, Eastern Canada, etc.). The more generic term...

If it was a joke, I really don't get it. :confused: There are tons of different liquors that are aged in wood (usually oak), all of them following very specific requirements. I don't see how soju aged in oak could be called "whiskey" any more than it could be called "brandy" or "tequila."

Do you mean the "white" part? Because new charred oak barrels happen to be a requirement of not just "straight bourbon," but of "bourbon" in general. So the answer to your questions would be because "straight bourbon" is a sub-category of bourbon. It could be argued that the two biggest...

I've only had the Jim Beam and Jack Daniels honey whiskeys. I thought I would love them because I love whiskey and I love honey, but the honey flavoring was so fake that I would call them mediocre at best. Of the two, I thought the Jack Daniels was a lot better than the Jim Beam. I'd be...