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Cracking into On-Grain Versus Off-Grain Production

The differences between on-grain and off-grain production involve much more than impact on flavor, and it pays for you to know the pros and cons of each method.

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Courtesy Echo Spirits, Columbus, Ohio
Courtesy Echo Spirits, Columbus, Ohio

It’s a question that’s been coming up more often in distilling circles: on-grain or off-grain distillation? Go to any distillers’ meet-up these days, and there’s bound to be at least one group having a (hopefully friendly) discussion about which is better for single-malt whiskey.

At first glance, those terms may seem simple and self-explanatory. However—like all things in the spirits industry—it gets more complicated once you dig in. So, let’s zoom in on those details and get a better feel for the pros and cons of each method when producing grain-based spirits.

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