Is There a Right Way to Taste Whiskey?
There are as many ways to drink whiskey as there are people who partake in it. But many of us want to know how we can maximize the experience. How can I taste it best? How do I know what smells it should have? Does the glass matter? Does water matter? Does the color matter? Ice or no ice?
Ultimately, we are asking, “Are there right and wrong ways to enjoy whiskey?”
And the long-and-short of it is, if you want to appreciate the moment I’ll give you a different answer than if you want to appreciate the whiskey. Appreciating the moment means having a carefree time with your loved ones; it means drinking whatever you feel like with whatever food you have or in whatever cocktail you wish; it means that the right way to consume it is whatever way makes you happy (so long as you won’t regret it the next morning).
But appreciating the whiskey means focusing on it as it was intended to be. The great Charles Maclean once said that it means “evaluating the flavor and assessing the quality.” If it is whiskey appreciation that you want, then yes, there are right and wrong ways to go about it.
The first thing is to make sure that you’ve got a good glass. I won’t say that you must have a certain brand, but look for glasses that have a wide bowl for you to swirl the whiskey in (if you so desire) and have a shape that tapers down to a skinny rim at the top. The rim of the glass can be flared out if you’d like, just as long as the overall shape of the glass looks sort of like a tulip. The wide bowl is ideal for increasing the surface area of the liquid, which is great for the evaporation of esters and other aromatic compounds. Then you want to narrow the path of the vapors to your nose.
(Pro Tip: if you are a beginner to whiskey tasting, do not put your nose directly to the glass such as you would with wine. If you do, the ethanol vapors will cauterize your nostrils. Instead, hold your glass about six inches from your face and try to smell it from there. You can then gradually float it closer to your nose until you reach the distance where you can smell the most aroma with the least burn. As you become more accustomed to the alcohol, you will find yourself being more intimate with the glass. You’ll thank me later. Do not rush it.)
Dilution is our next topic. Simply put, ice should not be added to the glass. Nerdly put, ice will lower the temperature of your whiskey, which reduces the movement of molecules in the solution and restricts many of the detectable congeners. This might be great if you want something cool and refreshing to appreciate the moment. But once again, to appreciate the whiskey you should permit yourself to taste and smell as much of it as you can.
Warm water is different. In some professional circles, blenders or critics will dilute the whiskey to an ABV of 20% as a rule. I think this is crazy. In order to qualify as a whiskey (or “whisky,” if it’s from Scotland, Japan or Canada) in most places it must have an ABV of at least 40% to begin with, so diluting it this way involves adding as much water to the glass as you have whiskey. In my experience, this does more harm than good.
Therefore, I recommend a maximum of 5g of water for each 1-2oz. pour, if you feel that the whiskey needs it. In my tasting notes for Distillare, I will occasionally suggest precise doses of water, but I’ll only add water if the ABV is 50% or higher, and if it is particularly “prickly” on the nose.
If you want to set a goal, I think you should try to reach a point where you are comfortable with sipping whisky/ey neat at 40-45% ABV (80 to 90 proof), since this is the common range produced and bottled by distilleries in North America and Europe. Then, play around with adding water in small doses to see how it affects your overall experience. Typically, doing so allows the whiskey to “bloom” or “open up,” so to speak.
Next, let’s discuss what to focus on when you’re tasting.
Does the color matter? When it comes to most whisky/ey produced around the world, caramel coloring is permitted and used frequently. This will not affect the flavor of the whiskey (allegedly) but it will make the whiskey look older and more influenced by oak than it really is.
Today, most of us are inclined to purchase a bottle if it looks aged or dark because we assume that this correlates with extra flavor or smoothness. When the color is naturally imparted by oak, those assumptions have some merit (see my article on oak aging). But when caramel coloring is used, the only thing you should take away from the color of the whiskey is… that it is that color. That's it. From a critic's point of view, this step in the evaluation process has little to no bearing on our decision regarding the quality of the whiskey. That said, it is illegal to use artificial caramel coloring in Bourbon, so if you are visually assessing a bourbon and you can tell that its hue is a deep amber or mahogany (or even molasses), you can expect certain flavors and aromas to be present in the aroma and taste. The same goes for other whisky/ey that you are confident has only natural, cask-imparted color.
What should I be smelling in a whiskey? The general flavor/aromatic categories in whisky/ey are as follows: (1) fruit, (2) grain, (3) floral, (4) botanical, (5) sweets, (6) spices, (7) woodiness, (8) nuttiness and (9) rancio.
Most of these are self-explanatory, but I should be clear that when I say “sweets” I mean flavors associated with sugary sweets or candies; like caramel, honey, molasses, or toffee. Also, when I say “rancio” I am using a term devised by the French to describe brandy that has been aged for decades. This term covers those flavors and aromas that come from a long time spent in the warehouse, such as dry leather or ash. Think of licking a dusty old block of decayed wood. Delicious, right? I think so.
(Pro Tip: the most helpful thing to do as a beginner when evaluating whiskey has actually nothing to do with the whiskey itself or the glass or the water. It’s keeping a list of common flavor/aroma vocabulary words in front of you while you’re tasting. The way our brains work, we can experience a thing but not be fully conscious of it unless we have a word to associate it with. Think of all the times you had it on the tip of your tongue, struggling to grasp it, and you just needed someone to say, “nutmeg.” That’s it!)
What about the finish? This is actually the thing most people don’t need training on. Just as it is natural to enjoy the taste of fat, sugar, and salt in food, it is natural to enjoy long, pleasant, smooth finishes in whiskey. That being the case, understand that all whiskey is going to have a little bite or burn to it because of the alcohol. But how well the whiskey has been filtered over time in the barrel contributes to its smoothness, and how it was distilled contributes to the amount of unpleasant aldehydes or toxic alcohols. So there are ways to reduce unpleasantness in a whiskey’s finish, and the best whiskey will have the most flavor with the least burn.
There is a lot more to say about how to taste confidently. For example, on tasting tequila or rum as opposed to whiskey. Or how I evaluate whiskey as an independent critic. But those are for another page. I want to encourage you to read some of my other articles on this site that explain the history of whiskey, or my recommendations for whiskey cocktails. My purpose for writing these is to give you free insight into the world of booze. So, I’ve made information available to you that I had to spend quite a lot of resources and time acquiring.
On behalf of Distillare, I hope it benefits you as a consumer of The Water of Life.
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