Sherry Casks: Can you please explain?
Sherry is a type of wine. Wine is a very sensitive ingredient when it

has been diminished. This isn’t typically the case in the wine that we have as mevushal because typically all the wine is pasteurized and all grape juice is pasteurized. It’s flash pasteurization and the whole pasteurization takes only a second or two and it doesn’t affect the taste. So there are poskim that say there’s no mevuashal at all when relying on pasteurization.

comes to Kashrus. There are some scotches, particularly single malt scotches, that are aged in sherry casks. If the sherry cask was used for non-kosher sherry, which is usually the case, there is a question that comes up if that affects the status of the scotch. It’s not really an ingredient in the scotch, it’s just the cask in which the scotch is being aged. It’s therefore not that significant and there is not such a serious amount in the entire product. The OU’s position is that we will not certify, or allow to use at an OU certified event, scotch which was aged in a sherry cask even though it’s not so significant in the product. There are those that are more lenient because of the two reasons I gave: It’s a small amount and it’s not part of the actual product. But we don’t want to rely on any bedieveds; we don’t want to rely on anything that’s not 100%. So the OU’s position is that we won’t use any scotch that was aged in sherry casks unless it was Kosher sherry casks.

What does mevushal mean & at what temperature is wine considered mevushal?
The word mevushal means cooked. The Halacha is very strict about wine and grape juice. Wine was a special part of Pagan worship and therefore wine needs to be under special supervision. However, because cooked wine was considered inferior, the special rules that apply to wine and grape juice don’t apply if they’re cooked. The word mevushal means cooked, and we know the boiling point for anything is 212 degrees. However, most Poskim are lenient and say if it’s mevuashal to the degree of 190 degrees, that would be okay. There are those that are stricter and say that even if it came to a boil, that wouldn’t make it mevushal. If you give a cup of mevushal wine to someone and another cup of wine that isn’t mevushal, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. So there are poskim who say it is only mevushal when the quality of wine