Next time you're at a bar, peruse the long line of liquor bottles and you'll find many of them are some sort of whiskey. It's an incredibly broad category and two of these are Irish whiskey and Scotch whisky (without the "E"). In the Irish whiskey category there are some essential brands for beginners like Jameson or Bushmills. For Scotch whisky, there are blended whiskies like Johnnie Walker and The Famous Grouse, and single malts like Macallan, Dalmore, and Glenfiddich. And that's just scratching the surface of both these products.

Before we jump into the differences between Irish whiskey and Scotch, we need to have an understanding of their similarities. Both are made from distilled grains and are aged in wooden barrels for at least three years and bottled at around 40% alcohol by volume. But within these confines you'll find a world of difference in taste, fermentation methods, and how they're matured, in addition to what is perhaps the key distinguishing factor: Irish whiskey is distilled in Ireland while Scotch whisky is distilled in Scotland.

Irish whiskey has to be produced on the island of Ireland (the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland) to be legally designated as such. To start, the grains distillers use in its production can vary. These include malted barley (malt Irish whiskey), a combination of malted and unmalted barley (pot still Irish whiskey), or barley and other grains like corn or wheat (Irish grain whiskey). While a lot of well-known Irish whiskey is distilled using a column still (sometimes with the addition of a smaller pot still) and is often blended, there is also Irish whiskey produced solely using pot stills and others made from single malts. Most Irish whiskey is triple distilled.