Talk:Single pot still whiskey

message: The main article says that pot still is unique to Ireland, and I understand that if someone in Ireland wishes to make pot still whiskey it has to be made to a certain recipe/process.  But is there anything that legally prevents anyone else in any other country to use that recipe/process and call it pot still whiskey?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.53.0.162 (talk) 01:13, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is nothing to prevent anyone from making or producing pot still whiskey outside of Ireland.  The only prohibition would be if they attempted to refer to it as Irish whiskey.  Prost! Hammersbach (talk) 12:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This page probably shouldn't even exist.  There aren't really even any reliable sources to establish notability, or to even establish that the term "pure pot still whiskey" is commonly used and has a specific meaning. There's already a page describing what a pot still is.  Objectively, pot still whiskey is simply whiskey that was produced by a pot still.  "Pure" is simply a nice sounding adjective, without really adding anything to the term. There is some nonsense about the term only applying to Irish whiskey, but there's plenty of pot still whiskey produced outside of Ireland, and there's nothing about Irish whiskey that makes it more pure than whiskey from anywhere else. 99.12.238.185 (talk) 07:27, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

text: Regarding the remark above that "I understand that if someone in Ireland wishes to make pot still whiskey it has to be made to a certain recipe/process" – actually, that does not seem to be true. The regulation governing the production of Irish whiskey says nothing about pot stills and does not define the term "pure pot still". The regulations governing Irish whiskey are actually relatively lax in general. See the Irish whiskey page for a reference to the actual regulation. –BarrelProof (talk) 14:17, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

text: If the new phrase is adopted into Irish whiskey regulations, then I would support having it described in Wikipedia. But the problem I have with both phrases is that they seem to primarily be terms used by one company for promotion of its own products, rather than something with a widely-accepted definition. The only source of information here seems to be the company that uses the phrase on its labels. Now the government has told them that their previous promotional phrase is misleading (because of its vague claim of purity), so they made up a new one.  But it's still just one company using and promoting the phrase at this point – unless some new sources of information appear. All of the brands that use the phrase seem to be made by the same company. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:01, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

text: I am glad to hear that. But at the moment, I'm rather busy, so I may not be able to help much with editing in the short term. The link to the photo with the phrase on the label seems nice. It's generally desirable to find references that are accessible on the Internet. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

text: Please refer to the article Wikipedia:Requested moves. That is something you can actually do yourself, but it may be better to have a more formal consideration before taking that action. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, now I see that the other article (Single Pot Still Whiskey) has already been created.  Perhaps what is needed at this point is an action known as a "merge" rather than a move. Or perhaps a "speedy delete" followed by a move (since the other article was only created today and the real intent was a move). —BarrelProof (talk) 18:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  What makes pot stills unique to Ireland? 

message: As i and others have mentioned in the section below, this article shouldnt even exist and i would like to nominate it for deletion. I sent a lengthy message on this subject to user BarrelProof and thought it would be worth reposting the relevant sections here to explain the situation although the message in its entirety can be read on his talk page. I am very new to wikipedia and would appreciate any and all help from other, more experienced, users in cleaning up the existing material. Slainte!
The article titled "Pure Pot Still Whiskey" started out inaccurate, and then due to a few coincidental misunderstandings of the term, became completely divorced from its original topic and now, due to changes in the industry, should be deleted anyway and replaced with a different article, if not two. The term "Pure Pot Still Whiskey" historically refers to a style of whiskey that arose in Ireland after the hike in the malt taxes during the Napoleonic wars. It does not refer to the theoretical concept of whiskey made in a "pot still" but rather the style resulting from the distillation of malted AND unmalted barley in a pot still. (Historically, the unmalted or "green' section of the wash sometimes included small amounts of other unmalted grains as well. The term isn’t a great signifier for its concept, as single malts or, say a pot still bourbon, are also theoretically “purely made in a pot still” but it is the term that history has coughed up.
The article was originally a bit of a lackluster stub but some well-meaning editors unfamiliar with the term seemed to stumble on it and, with the best intentions, said that there was nothing uniquely irish or mixed mash about the concept of a pot still and, on the strength of that conviction, deleted the small amount of information that there was. As it stands, the current article neither describes the historical style nor the actual process of theoretical pot still distillation. An article on the latter should be given a name like "pot still distillation" and should outline the chemistry of the pot still in comparison the column still. (Come to think of it, this would be a very worthwhile article as the old pot still/column still divide has relevance not only for whisky but for brandy and other craft distillates...)
Although the original PPS style was widely popular during the victorian age, it was almost wiped out in the early 20th as a result of the convergence of the Irish War of independence, the economic war with Britain, the subsequent civil war in Ireland, and the untimely declaration of prohibition in the U.S. As a result, Ireland's once vibrant distilling scene fell almost completely silent over the space of two decades and, as this unfortunately happened at the same time as the actual creation of the independant Irish Free State and, eventually, the subsequent Republic of Ireland, there has been no law written in Ireland explaining the specific definition of the term. As a result, the cooley distillery started labeling some of their products as “Pure pot still single malts” during the 90s but have subsequently ceased the practice and have even recently begun experiments to produce genuine pps whiskeys of their own to compliment their single malt line.
Anyway, this is all rather irrelavent as the industry and major critical bodies thankfully have come together in the last two years to lobby the EU for a new official definition (I spoke with the IWS president Leo Phelan (who can be contacted on their website) a week ago and he can offer more information about this legal process) and the style, under its more rigourous specifications has been renamed “Single Pot Still.” This new name is presumably meant to put it in more obvious contrast with its “Single Malt” cousin and also to satisfy American liquor laws which have a prohibition-old distaste for the word “pure” being written on an alcohol label. The industry, the IWS, and the early stages of the long EU certification process have all accepted the new term (not all that historically diferent from the clarification of “Single Malt” decades ago, as old bottles of SM scotch used to use all manner of terms like “pure malt” “all malt” etc) and, in light of such changes, I would like to recommend the speedy deletion of the existing muddled article and the construction of a more thorough article on Single Pot Still whiskey. 
Trestarig (talk) 18:37, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello Trestarig.  Since you stated that you would appreciate any help that you could get may I offer that you review WP:MOS?  That will help you with some of the presentation that Wickedlypedia insists upon.  Sláinte!  Hammersbach (talk) 04:41, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

text: So that's what I (finally) did. To match, I also moved this talk page to serve as the talk page for the single pot still article. Essentially the same effect as a move and merge. oknazevad (talk) 21:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Pure Pot Still Article shouldn't exist 

message: Looking at it, it seems the most straightforward thing to do would be to redirect this article to single pot still whiskey, as that is now the standard term and is more accurate in describing this as an Irish-specific term of art. oknazevad (talk) 22:30, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: So that's what I (finally) did. To match, I also moved this talk page to serve as the talk page for the single pot still article. Essentially the same effect as a move and merge. oknazevad (talk) 21:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Page merge/redirect