Whiskey in a fractionating column

[engunear]

Maybe this has been done to death, but I can't find a thread on it.

I have regularly seen side comments on the pages to the tune of "you can't make good whiskey in a column". As an owner of a column I've only used it for clean spirit and chemistry experiments. In my pot still whiskey I tend to leave a lot of heads on the basis that if you taste a lot of good bourbons (particularly, more so than scotch) you can get strong notes of ethyl acetate and some acetone like flavours. They are balanced by the esters etc and so it just works. Love them.

Now thats fine, but I've noticed that when giving a shot of home made to some non-HD friends, particularly something young, the nose wrinkles very quickly, and there are a a lot of complaints. In a 3yo then this is less pronounced, but there is only so much 3yo in the shed.

So I wondered what a whiskey would be like with no heads. So I made a mash 3/6 peated, 2/6 straight barley, 1/6 wheat, stripped (steam), put it in the 2m scrubbie packed column system and ran full reflux till it stabilised and pulled out 100ml or so of heads. Usual stinky shite. Then opened the needle up to no reflux and ran the rest of the run as per a pot still. Put it on oak with a bit of sherry.

It is now about 3mo old. And without the heads flavours the whiskey taste and peat comes through very clearly. I think in normal young headsy whisky the heads mask the (new) esters. My plan is to always do this for whiskeys made to drink young, and use pot still only for whiskeys made to drink old. And one friend who has had a chance to try it did not wrinkle his nose at all.

So you can make very good whiskey in a fractionating column.