If you’re a fan of peat and peaty whiskies and you do a bit of reading or googling on the subject, it’s not too long before you encounter the letters “ppm”. And never have three letters caused so much excitement, passion, enthusiasm…and confusion: Parts Per Million.
A lot of whisky appreciation these days revolves around comparison and relativity. Examples? We measure or define how sherried a whisky might be by comparing it to a well-known benchmark: “The Macallan Fine Oak isn’t as heavily sherried as Aberlour a’Bunadh.” Or, “If you like the smokiness of Talisker 10, you’ll probably enjoy Bowmore 12.”
Where ppm sticks its nose in and causes problems is that people use it as a yardstick for comparing smokiness and peatiness in whisky. And that in itself causes dramas, as there are plenty of people out there who still don’t appreciate that smokiness and peatiness are two different things. Yes, you can have one without the other. More on that in a moment.