Tasting Whiskey

by Lew Bryson

  Relax with the Whiskey

  You’re going to enjoy a whiskey, and you’re going to learn about a whiskey. That’s true of your first tasting, and it can be true every time you have a whiskey from now on, even if it’s a whiskey you’ve had many times before. Stay sharp, and have fun.

  Open the bottle: a new whiskey, a familiar whiskey, any whiskey, it doesn’t matter. Pour about half an ounce (15 ml) into your glass. Now lift the glass to your nose. Don’t stuff your nose into the glass, or you’ll be overwhelmed by alcohol. Bring it gently up to your nose till you start to smell the whiskey, and hold it there.

  Close your eyes . . . just drift a bit. Think of what the smell evokes, what memory it pulls up. Cookies? Sun-warmed grass? Golden raisins? Spices? Fingernail polish remover (acetone)? Smoke? Just-cut lumber? Honey on fresh bread? Gently sniff until you find an aroma that reminds you of something you’ve smelled before. Write it down, if you’re taking notes. Wait for other notes to pop out; take a few breaths away from the whiskey and return to it. Swirl the glass a bit to stir up fresh aromas and smell some more.

  Now take a sip, slowly. Close your mouth, and let the whiskey flow across your tongue. Hold it on your tongue for as long as it’s comfortable, then breathe easily and swallow. It’s quite likely that you’ll taste different things as the whiskey first hits your tongue, then spreads, then vaporizes, and then other things, possibly quite different, as you swallow and the whiskey finishes.

  What do you taste? Is it hot? Bitter? Sweet? What do you smell now? Is it the same as what you smelled from the whiskey before drinking it? It often is . . . and sometimes it isn’t. Again, is there anything familiar? When a connection occurs to you, don’t judge it, or be afraid to write it down, or say it out loud.

  Now take another sip, and this time, work it a bit. You want to get the whiskey all through your entire mouth cavity. Don’t swish it like mouthwash; that’s too quick, and random. Slow chewing motions work well, and pull in small amounts of air as you do it; not too much, or you risk inhaling whiskey.

  What you’re trying to do at this point is get more airflow into your mouth and up the “chimney” of your nose, to carry the aromas of the whiskey to your sense of smell. You don’t have to be obvious or ostentatious about it, and you don’t have to work at pushing it up to your nose. If you chew and bring air in, it will happen.

  Again, smell, taste, and think about what else smells and tastes like this. Do the aromas and flavors change as you breathe? Do new ones appear or change in intensity as you swallow and breathe over the thin layer of spirit still in your mouth, the moment known as the finish? Take more notes, if you’re doing that.

  Then comes the important part: do you like how this tastes, or not? What do you like or not like about it? As you think about that and make your judgments, you’ll be doing what a friend of mine called “writing the Book of Your Taste,” a book you’ll be able to consult with increasing confidence as you taste more whiskeys. You may rewrite it in the future as you taste more whiskeys and your tastes evolve, and that’s okay, too.

  As you’re tasting you’ll also want to consider how the whiskey fits together. Is it well integrated, or is it unbalanced? Does one taste overwhelm everything, a one-note song that deafens you to any other harmony? That might be the case when a whiskey is finished in a cask that’s unfortunately inappropriate to its character, or in a young, smoky whiskey whose flavors haven’t had a chance to meld properly.

  Perhaps you have a whiskey that has a shy nose, that doesn’t really open up until it’s on your tongue, robbing you of half the fun. At the other end, a whiskey’s finish may either drop off abruptly or turn in a significantly less pleasant direction than the main taste.

  Age can unbalance a whiskey as well. Young whiskeys may be too fiery and rough, or “green” and spirity, not smoothed out enough by the barrel. Older whiskeys may be overwhelmed by wood and evaporation to the point of being astringent, dry, with no life, no zest.

  Any of these could be seen as a flaw compared to the experience of a whiskey that presents a rounded whole. Ideally, a whiskey should give you a smooth progression from initial aromas, through the flavors on the tongue, to the lingering flavors and sensations of the finish. There may be surprises along the way as flavors intensify on the palate or appear at the finish as more air mixes with the whiskey, but they are pleasing rather than a jolt.

  “Integrated” isn’t a code word for restrained or overly refined, either. A whiskey may well be a roaring giant of flavor, and some of the best of them are. But the good giants don’t have two heads or three legs, or carry a flimsy reed instead of a club; they’re balanced and strong all around.

  ABV Content

  Where Whiskey Gets Its Flavor

  As a whole, each type of whiskey exhibits a common, recognizable range of flavors (though of course individual whiskeys may exhibit flavors outside that range). Flavors come from two major sources: the spirit side, which stems largely from the grain and the effects of a distiller’s unique fermentation and distillation regimens; and the barrel side, the effect of the type of barrel and the aging environment. In most whiskeys, one or the other gets an advantage. In bourbon, for instance, the barrel contributes the majority of the flavor; in rye, it’s the spirit. Here’s how the flavor ranges break down.

  Scotch

  From the spirit: sweet malt, nuts, fudge, cake, peat (smoke, brine, tar), berries, honey, citrus, spice.

  From the barrel: coconut, dried fruit, rich wine, oak bite, vanilla, drying wood.

  Advantage: spirit in peated Scotch; barrel in sherried Scotch.

  Irish

  From the spirit: sugar cookie, assorted fruits, toffee, fresh grain.

  From the barrel: dried fruit, wax, coconut, vanilla.

  Slight advantage: spirit.

  Bourbon

  From the spirit: corn, mint, cinnamon, grass, rye.

  From the barrel: coconut, maple, vanilla, smoke, spice, leather, dryness, caramel.

  Advantage: barrel.

  Rye

  From the spirit: dry mint, anise, hard candy, flowers, meadow grass, bitter rye oil.

  From the barrel: spice, leather, dryness, caramel.

  Advantage: spirit.

  Canadian

  From the spirit: spice (pepper, ginger), rye, sweet cereal, dark fruits.

  From the barrel: wood (oak, cedar), vanilla, caramel.

  Advantage: spirit.

  Japanese

  From the spirit: fruits (plum, light citrus, apple), peat (smoke, seaweed, coal), grass, spice.

  From the barrel: coconut, cedar, vanilla, oak, spices.

  Advantage: even split.

  Watering the Water of Life

  Time for honesty now. Is the whiskey simply too hot (too alcoholic) for your palate? That’s what the water’s for. Don’t even think about being shy about this, or embarrassed; we all do it. Writers, reviewers, and certainly distillers and blenders: anyone who’s serious about whiskey will taste it with water added. We’ll talk more about this in chapter 13, but for now let’s focus on the nuts and bolts of why water isn’t really forbidden in whiskey.

  First, a basic truth: whiskey doesn’t come out of the barrel at exactly 40 percent (or 43 percent, or 45 percent, or 50.5 percent, or whatever your preferred bottling proofs out at). It comes out of the barrel at anywhere between 40 percent (the legal minimum in most whiskey-producing countries) and as much as 70 percent.

  The distillers blend together a number of carefully selected barrels to make a bottling batch, and then, unless this is for one of the relatively small number of barrel-strength bottlings, they add just the right amount of water to bring the batch to that label’s bottling proof. It’s “just the right amount” because excise taxes are usually based on alcohol, and governments are quite picky about how much alcohol is actually in the bottle so they’re not losing a penny of taxes. Distillers don’t really want to lose any whiskey, either; that stuff’s valuable.

  So all you’r
e really doing when you add water is adding more water. Not a big deal.

  Adding water to whiskey works for two different reasons. One’s pretty simple: by lowering the proof, you’re dropping The Wall again, to a new, even lower level. Don’t drown the whiskey, but do a bit of quick math. Whiskey writer Chuck Cowdery makes it easy with this whiskey-dilution formula he worked out and put in his book Bourbon, Straight:

  Whi x ((bP/dP) – 1) = Wa

  Whi = amount of whiskey

  bP = bottle proof (or ABV)

  dP = desired proof (or ABV)

  Wa = amount of water to add to achieve desired proof

  Say, for instance, you want to drop half an ounce (about 15 ml) of 45 percent whiskey to a gentler 30 percent. The formula works like this: 0.5 × ((45/30) – 1) = 0.25. You’d add a quarter of an ounce (about 7 ml) of water. Spring or distilled water is best; tap water can come with unwanted flavors. You can pay a lot for fancy water, but a supermarket bottled water will work fine.

  You’ll want to experiment with how much or little water to add, and where the proof is comfortable for you, but once you’ve tried it, you’ll be sure to keep at it. Most professional “noses,” the skilled people who pick the barrels for blending at distilleries, will cut samples to 20 percent. It’s a long day when you’re nosing as many as a hundred barrel samples, and even cut to 40 percent, they’ll numb your nose pretty quickly.

  Water also frees some aromas and flavors. These aromatic compounds, mostly the fruity, zesty esters, are “locked up” when there is an abundance of ethanol in the solution; the ethanol molecules close in around them. When water is added, it splits open these ethanol straitjackets and the esters are released to your nose. Think of the differences your nose senses after rainfall: the fresh scents of plants, the distinctive aroma of wet pavement. Water has broken loose those aromas from chemical bonds and released them into the air.

  Perversely, water brings out the sulfury compounds found in the heavier Scotch whiskies, leading to the release of unpleasant rubbery, “meaty” aromas. It will also subdue the presence of some desirable aromatics, particularly the smoky phenolic scents of peat and pleasant cereal notes.

  Given the irrevocable changes water makes in a whiskey, it’s always best to nose the whiskey neat (undiluted) first. It’s easy enough to put water in, but it’s the devil’s own work to take it out; just ask a distiller.

  There’s one more trick you’ll want to learn: waiting. If you let a whiskey sit, the flavors will change. Some things oxidize and transform; some things simply dissipate and vanish. In some cases this will help the whiskey, while in others it could make it bland or unpleasant. There are no guidelines or ways to guess this, but it is an interesting variation on the taste of your whiskey.

  Blind Justice

  Something you may begin to notice as you develop more familiarity with whiskey is distillery character. A distillery’s whiskeys often show a similarity that an experienced taster will recognize and, to a certain extent, expect.

  Seiichi Koshimizu, revered Chief Blender at Suntory Yamazaki whisky distillery, Japan

  This can stem from the stills: Glenmorangie’s uniquely tall pot stills make for a light, refined spirit, while Glenfarclas’s squatter, broader stills deliver a heavier, almost oily character. It can come from the grain: Alberta Distillers Ltd. uses 100-percent rye in its whiskies, and it shows; the unmalted barley in Irish Distillers’ single pot still whiskeys is distinctive. Consistent barrel selection, warehouse construction and position, water source, peat source, yeast, or the guidance of a long-time distiller or blender: all of these can build a unique, recognizable character in a distillery’s whiskeys.

  Distillery character is the basis of people’s cleaving to a particular distillery’s whiskeys above all others. They find that character, and they love it, and nothing else will do for them. When they see a new expression from that distillery, they expect that character, and they know they’re going to like it.

  That’s just one of the things that can throw off your perception when you taste whiskey, but it’s a key to a whole group of them: expectations. It’s how your brain can trip up your tongue before you even taste a whiskey.

  Your eyes have input on tasting; they see the label on the bottle. When I know that I’m tasting a Buffalo Trace whiskey, for example, I’m already in a receptive frame of mind. I like Buffalo Trace whiskeys, I’ve learned to expect them to be pleasurable, and that inescapably colors my perception.

  You can try to be objective, you can say you’re tasting with your tongue and nose only, you can claim that no prejudice exists in your mind . . . but you’re just fooling yourself. You can only go so far. At the back of your mind, working on you in ways you won’t or can’t admit, gnawing at the solid, sturdy taproot of your senses, are all the memories and opinions you have of the producer and its other products, the place you got the drink, the way the bottle looked, what other people have said about it, your developed opinion of the general style of the whiskey — all that, tearing away at your objectivity.

  You can restore your objectivity with a blindfold and an assistant. It’s not a magic trick; it’s blind tasting. If you want to find out what you truly think about a whiskey, taste it blind with two other similar whiskeys. Have your assistant pour in another room (my daughter usually helps me out here), and have her either mark the glasses or write down the order to ensure that she knows which one is which — and you don’t.

  Is it a lot of work? You bet. If you’re just a casual drinker, it makes no sense to go to all this trouble. But there is no better way to learn about whiskey. Blind tasting makes you think. It’s hard work. There are no shortcuts, no “yeah, there’s that house character,” because you don’t know whose house you’re in! When you have none of those aids, you have to really think about what you’re tasting, to try to pick up what the important components are, how it fits together, how it progresses on your palate. It will make you think deeply about taste, about mouthfeel, about finish. It is the only way to do honest, unbiased tasting.

  If you really want to get serious, you can do triangle tasting. That’s blind tasting with a trick question. Take three somewhat similar whiskeys — for instance, similarly aged expressions of peated single malts, such as Laphroaig, Talisker, and Caol Ila. Then have your assistant pour three whiskies — any three whiskies — without your knowing which whiskies they are. Your assistant could pour two Taliskers and a Caol Ila, or one of each, or maybe even three Laphroaigs, but you won’t know. This really focuses your senses, because you’ll have to be looking hard for similarities — which might not be there at all.

  Blind tasting opens your eyes. Try it, and see what you learn. But if you’d like to do something that’s a lot less hassle (and a lot easier to do on your own), try open-label tasting with two similar whiskeys.

  Side-by-side tasting reveals differences with the bright light of comparison and can help you home in on just what it is you like or don’t about a whiskey. Pour tastes of the standard bottlings of the three Kildalton distilleries on the southeast coast of Islay, for instance: Laphroaig, Lagavulin, and Ardbeg. As you address the sweet smoky natures of each, you’ll come to realize that although all three are powerfully peaty, there are clear differences, and those differences will teach you about the individual whiskies, their homes, and peated whiskies in general.

  When you’re done — single, blind, or side by side — relax and reflect, while finishing up whatever’s left of the whiskeys you’ve poured. You’ve written another entry in “Your Taste,” that book you’ll be consulting as you move further into the widening landscape of whiskey.

  Triangle Tastings

  Sharing the Fun

  You’ve discovered how enjoyable really tasting your whiskey can be. There’s a lot to be said for simply drinking and enjoying it, to be sure, but tasting is a different thing, with rewards of its own. If you want to share that pleasure with friends or relations, it’s easy enough; you’ll mostly need more glasses, an
d the right approach.

  The tricky part of sharing whiskey tasting with friends isn’t the material part: the whiskey, the glasses, the water, or note pads. It’s the attitude, both yours and theirs . . .but mostly yours. The thing to remember is that you want your friends to have a good time, to enjoy tasting the whiskey. It’s not about showing off your whiskey collection or your whiskey knowledge; it’s about sharing the pleasure you get from good whiskey.

  Pick your guest list. You’ll want to keep it small the first time around, two or three friends. Sound them out to see if they’re even interested; I wouldn’t really be interested in a tequila tasting, myself. After you get a few of these tastings under your belt, you can expand them, maybe do a dinner with whiskey, which can be a great night. (However you make your guest list, think ahead about your friends getting home safely. If they’re not walking or taking public transportation, they should have a non-tasting friend along to drive back.)

  Once you’ve got your friends set, decide what it’s going to be about. Do you want to taste a few single malts, try some bourbons, experiment with Irish, or maybe one of each? Tasting, as you’ve discovered, is a great way to point up the real differences among various whiskeys of the same type, or to characterize the differences of the major divisions.

  Keeping it simple at this point is probably best. Three is a good number. Select examples of one type, or examples of the major whiskeys: a bourbon, a Scotch, and an Irish. That brings up the question of what to pick. You have to draw a somewhat fine line here. Go too ordinary, and your guests may think you’re insulting them; go extraordinary, and your guests may feel intimidated.