Whiskey — or whisky, if you prefer — is a distilled spirit that’s usually made from corn, rye, barley, wheat, or, very often, a cross combination of some or all those.
Whiskey is almost always aged in wooden casks which almost always consist of charred white oak.
The word “whiskey” is an anglicized version of the Gaelic uisce beatha (in Scottish Gaelic: uisge beatha) which means “living water,” or “water of life.”
Irish whiskey, Scottish whiskey (i.e. scotch), Canadian whiskey, and American whiskey (i.e. bourbon) are by far the most popular whiskeys in the world. But these days virtually every country produces some sort of whiskey.
In bartending, whiskey is the new vodka. It has never been more popular.
So I made the following: