Why whisky is filtered through charcoal as some of the adverts claim?

Answer 1

Smoothness.

Answer 2

In whiskey circles, the procedure is unique to Tennessee Whiskey. In fact, it's more or less what defines Tennessee Whiskey and makes it differ from bourbon.

(Although some vodkas are also charcoal-filtered).

For Tennessee Whiskey, it's officially known as the "Lincoln County Process", whereby the spirit is filtered through columns roughly 10 feet tall of charcoal made from sugar maple.

Jack Daniels now uses the term "Charcoal Mellowing", to give the impression that the process mellows or smoothes out the whiskey. I suppose you can argue that the filtration process will remove some "unwanted" elements from the spirit, but I suspect the process actually imparts flavours to the whiskey, rather than removes any.

Why is it done? There's some blurb on a website somewhere that says that one of the original US distillers noticed there was a difference in taste between his winter make & his summer make, and it went onto make the link with the charcoal process, but it never made sense to me

Answer 3

I have not hared of filtering with Activated Charcoal filter but that does not mean it is not done by some manufacturer some where and the process is used for some products.

It is true that Activated Charcoal filter can eliminates lots of toxins.

Most of the Activated Charcoal type applications in case of

Whiskey is mainly done while ageing process.

Oak barrels are made and then set on fire on the inside surface to charred them, this creates an Activated Charcoal surface.

Whisky is stored in this type of storage container and the containers are store in cave, building . They are also stack in certain order, and rotated in certain order and aged for any where from few days to few years. Most distillers, are very secretive, about the methods of storage, and stacking, and rotating, including firing of the barrel itself, and use of certain kind of Oak wood, grown in certain location only, and certain age only at which it was harvested.

The quality control is extremely good and the product is further blended to maintain same flavour, test, smoothness and the bottled using time tested method.

The bottle usually have the labels showing the age of the whiskey.

Answer 4

Charcoal filtering any liquid removes impurities. For the whisky it can give a smoother taste with less burn.

Answer 5

charcoal is a good adsorbant. it filters out only the impurities an thus makes whisky pure.

Answer 6

Would.nt be scotch,most certainly is'nt filtered through charcoal.Scotch is filtered through the kidneys.Must be that american fire water ,masquerading as whisky