The Different Types of Liquor – A Bartender’s Guide

There’s no doubt about it, the world of liquor can be extremely confusing to the uninitiated. I remember when I first started working with liquor and I knew nothing. I had no idea what gin, vodka, or rum were. And I assumed that since scotch and bourbon were both called whisk(e)y, they were pretty much the same thing…

But boy was I wrong.

And I didn’t realize how wrong I was until I tried to give a bourbon drinker scotch instead. He quickly perked up and told me that what I gave him wasn’t the bourbon that he ordered. He was right… It was scotch. But instead of correcting my mistake and swapping his drink for the one he wanted, I proceeded to tell him that since they were both called whisk(e)y, they were the same thing!

It was embarrassing…

Fortunately, I had the guidance of a senior bartender to point out my mistake. And he was kind enough to teach me some of the basics on the different types of liquor.

Some of it stuck, some of it didn’t. And sometimes it felt like the more I learned, the more confusing everything became. The law gets involved, companies employ different marketing tactics, and everyone’s got an opinion…

But eventually, things started to make sense. And that’s what this article is about. Rather than put you through the same kind of misery I went through when I first started, I want to clear things up from the beginning. So if you’ve ever felt confused by the different types of liquor, don’t worry. Because we’re about to deconstruct their complexities.