Whisky by Flavour - Cereal - Root Vegetable

Root vegetables come in a range of shapes and sizes and their flavours in whisky vary too. Tasting notes could highlight cooked vegetables such as potatoes or carrots. Other root vegetable notes could come across as sulphuric in dense whiskies with a chewy mouthfeel, examples would be turnips and beets.

The production influence for root vegetable flavours would be from the fermentation stage and distillation, the sulphuric notes such as turnips can come from a short fermentation with distillation in squat stills or ones with a lower than 90 degree lyne arm, potentially leading to a worm tub condenser, as this creates a heavier alcohol vapour with less reflux. Whereas the cooked vegetable flavours will come from the same processes they will be lighter and more noticeable in the end product.

In terms of maturation influence, rich root vegetable notes will be more apparent in cask strength bottlings, these will not have been watered down and you’ll find more closed flavours which come from the production process, sulphuric notes such as beets or turnips could be found in experimental fortified wine casks such as Rivesaltes casks. Cooked vegetable notes will be more apparent in lower abv bottlings due to their lighter smoother flavours, these will be enhanced by an ex-bourbon cask or potentially a cognac cask.