What is making Irish whiskey taste waxy

[Robert of Otto]

Hello

An acquaintance of mine asked me the other day "Why some Irish whiskey's have a waxy taste. I replied that I wasn't sure however I thought it may be a product of triple distillation.Is there a definitive or more precise answer.

Robbie McQueen

[Ganga]

I don't know the answer to that but it may be related to still shape. I can tell you that I have found several scotch whiskies that also show waxy and/or parafin flavors and aromas. Clynelish comes to mind and it is not triple distilled.

[bredman]

It's waxy at Clynelish because they don't clean the waxy/fatty deposits out of the pipework. Iirc they did once and lost the waxy nature, so now they never do.

Bearing in mind there are only 4 irish distilleries. Bushmills is a triple distilled malt and isn't waxy. Cooley is double distilled malt and neither is that, and Killbeggan is still young. Midleton whiskey can have an oily character but i'm not sure if it would be described as waxy. Perhaps occasionally. It's the SPS (single pot still) whiskies that can be oily so that would suggest it was due to the unmalted barley. But having said that many Scottish malts are oily and/or waxy.

I've just realised i can not add anything to this Irish whiskey discussion.