The real difference between scotch, whiskey, and bourbon

Whiskey is a global term, and whiskey can be produced in any country. When you call yourself a whiskey, all that means is that you take grain and you ferment it, then you distill it, and then you put it into a barrel to mature it. That's the common definition that ties scotch whiskey to Japanese whiskey to Irish whiskey to bourbon whiskey. Scotch whiskey can only be made in Scotland. If you call yourself bourbon whiskey, you can't be produced just anywhere. You have to come from the United States. You can't just use any grain, but you have to be at least 51% corn. And most importantly, if you call yourself bourbon whiskey, you cannot reuse barrels. You have to use only new charred oak barrels. What I love about bourbon whiskeys and Tennessee whiskeys is that they're all natural. Everything in the bottle is going to come from water, grains, and barrel. The color's all natural. All the flavor's natural. Not every whiskey is all natural. Some of them use sugars and colors and things of that nature. They're allowed to, but we don't. You can make bourbon in Hawaii if you want to haul corn over there. It just has to be a product of the United States first. It is what we call the native spirit. Only about 40% of what we produce for Jack Daniels is consumed within the United States. 60% of it goes to the rest of the world. So we're proud to be a top 10 export product from the state of Tennessee and probably its best known export product today.