How to taste Whiskey?
Whom is this blog for?
If you have just started or have been enjoying whiskey for a long time and are pondering upon improving your whiskey tasting skills and want to understand and appreciate your journey about the fundamentals of how to taste whiskey, then welcome to the pride.
- “There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others.”
~ William Faulkner- Writer and Nobel Prize laureate
As learned in the school of hospitality and from personal experience, whiskey tasting is a teamwork between your senses; your eyes to visually experience the tones and hues, your nose to smell the scents, and finally your mouth to elevate the experience to a further level of taste where you get the whiskey notes.
On a cleansed palate, when the whiskey hits your tongue and is swirled in the mouth you can feel its warmth along with some amazing notes which you can identify as nutty or fruity and as the whiskey is sipped, you will get a smoky or a light finish to it. And so, this was in short what whiskey tasting is like.
In further blog you will read about how to understand whiskeys and turn from someone who merely drinks it to someone who will enjoy & appreciate the whiskey for being an elixir that it is.
Things that you will require for whiskey tasting:
Let us start with the basics of whiskey tasting. You do not need to go all fancy to start your tasting journey. It can be done anywhere just with the right resources, and we’ll see what are they.
The first and foremost is a good whiskey glass. It can be an old fashioned one, a whiskey tumbler or a tulip glass or even any other according to your preferences. Personally, I like to use an old fashioned one or a tulip glass as their bowl shape concentrates aromas through the slightly narrow rim.
So now you have your perfect glass, what’s next?
- Obviously, you will need a whiskey that you want to taste. It can be anything of your choice- a single malt, Scotch, or Bourbon. Whichever you desire, it doesn’t matter if it is your friend’s birthday or any other party, you can start your tasting journey anywhere.
- The last thing you will require is a drop or two of water & if you would like- a book and pen to write down about the notes and flavors as and when you experience them.
And voila! You are good to go and start with your whiskey tasting journey!
Excited?! Well you should be because whiskey making is a time taking process and a lot of them are aged for years to develop the desired taste. And so we should always appreciate while enjoying the whiskey and give it the respect it deserves.
It doesn’t matter how you got here — or how much you already know about whiskey — all that matters is that you want to find out about whiskey tasting.
So we have the glass, we have the whiskey let’s start –
So firstly carefully pour yourself around 30 ml of whiskey in the glass.
We will follow a step by step procedure, for the best whiskey tasting experience.
Appearance –
Gently raise the glass upright in front of your eyes and observe the colors you see and try to relate them with things around you, like the deep colors of a sunset, the gold, the yellow or even the blonde of the girl’s hair in a movie you saw and crushed on. Let your imagination take the drive and note down what you feel the whiskey’s color is.
You can learn many things about a whiskey just by looking at it but all of this is going to require patience and practice and more practice which I’ll be further explaining in details about in my upcoming write ups, so stay tuned ;)
The Nose — in simple terms inhale/ smell the whiskey
This step is an important one as experts say that tasting is simply to confirm what your nose has told you.
How do we start then? Give the glass a swirl as this helps the aromas to release and then carefully bring the glass to your nose and gently sniff the aromas and let them slowly work their way to your nose. Now search your mind for nostalgia! Again, let your memory flow- from a barbeque night (smoke, salt, wood, grass) or your father or grandfather’s desk (leather, wood) or maybe even any festival ( dried fruits, cake, any particular food), it can be anything and each one of you would have your own distinct description of it (earthy, smoky, woody, etc. aromas).
So, as you have come this far, it is time for the reward and you know what needs to be done right? J Take a sip of the whiskey which brings us to the palate.
The Palate –
Now it’s the tasting part of the whiskey tasting and conforming if the nose did a good job. So take a sip and swirl the whiskey in your mouth and notice what sensations are you feeling- is it soft or hot or is it drying or refreshing. Don’t forget to write it down and once you get the notes, swallow the whiskey and ignore the burning sensation, purely focusing on its flavors. Observe if it is smooth or dry and is the finish short, medium or long which means how long the flavors linger in your mouth.
What many experts prefer is to add a drop or two of water into their whiskey as it helps the whiskey to open up and helps you understand the flavors more effectively as it narrows down the initial burning effect which will allows you to note down the observations quickly.
And so that was all about how to taste a whiskey like a professional!
And yes there is much more than this to whiskey tasting, but for the start, these are the basics that are going to be key factors while tasting a whiskey and as said earlier I’ll be further explaining in details about it in my upcoming write ups.
Do keep in mind that everyone has a different palate and taste.
So there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to whisky tasting. It takes practice and time to understand the complexity of a whiskey.
Whisky tasting is to enhance your appreciation of the whisky; it’s not a competition to see who has a better or more sophisticated palate.
Just take your whiskey take a sip and enjoy yourself. If you’re not enjoying yourself, what’s the point? It’s a treat, not an assignment.
