at the beginning of a tour of the jameson distillery, the guide asks for four volunteer tasters. at the end of the tour, they sit up front and taste different whiskeys & whiskys (the one with the e is irish, the one without, scotch & american). all except one preferred the jameson. j & i agreed we prefer scotch. we didn't get to try the four, but just one sample of the basic jameson. the main difference between irish whiskey and other whisky is that it is distilled 3 times, instead of american whisky, which is distilled once, or scotch, which is distilled twice.