All about spirits, liquors, distilled beverages, cocktails and alcohols

Origin: Ireland and Scotland, around 1500; known as aqua vitae, uisge beatha or usquebaugh (all meaning "water of life") until the 1700s (name shortened from "usquebaugh" to "usky" and eventually "whiskey").

Ingredients: barley, corn, rye

Spelled "whisky" in Scotland, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand.

Single-Malt Scotch
Origin: Scotland, 1500
Ingredients: 100% barley malt
Process: Under the Scotch Whiskey Act 1988: pot distill to no more than 94.8% ABV, age in oak for at least three years, dilute with water and add nothing but caramel for color.
Currently there are only about 115 operating distilleries producing single-malt scotch.

Blended Scotch
Origin: Scotland, 1860s
Ingredients: single malt scotch (30-60%), grain alcohol (from corn)
Process: Mix several malt whiskies from different distillers with grain spirits (more neutral in flavor) produced in column stills.
Legal since the 1860s, the motivation for blending was originally economic but it also met the demand outside of Scotland for a milder spirit.

Irish Whiskey
Origin: Ireland
Ingredients: barley (60%), barley malt (40%)
Process: Dry the malt (don't roast), and triple distill.
Milder than single malt and some blended scotch.

Rye
Origin: North America
Ingredients: rye (minimum 51%), barley malt
Process: By law: distill at less than 80% ABV and age for at least two years in new charred barrels.
Some rye is bottled and marketed directly, but most is blended into other whiskies for character and structure.

Bourbon
Origin: Bourbon County, Kentucky, United States
Ingredients: corn (minimum 51%), barley malt
Process: By law: distill at less than 80% ABV and age for at least two years in new charred barrels. In practice, aged at least four years.

Tennessee Whiskey
Origin: Tennessee, United States
Ingredients: corn (minimum 51%), barley malt
Process: By law: distill at less than 80% ABV, filtered through bed of sugar maple charcoal, age for at least two years in new charred barrels.

Canadian Whiskey
Origin: Canada
Ingredients: corn or wheat with rye, barley, or barley malt
Process: Usually: blend from different whiskies of different ages; by law: age in used oak barrels for minimum three years (four to six in practice). Export in barrel or bottle in Canada at 43.4% ABV.