The challenge with whisky is that it is an experience of the senses — mostly smell and taste — with only a few elements which could be gleaned from sight, unlike this article. What I am challenged to achieve is a means by which I can convey the taste and smells of whisky to the reader in a way that makes at least a modicum of sense and can thereby impart a shared experience to the reader in a way which hopefully leaves them informed and somewhat content by the vicariousness of the entire exercise. It will either work, or it won’t, and I guess that is part of my grand experiment. Regardless, I hope that even if you’re not able to get a really good sense of the nose and palate of the whiskies I’m writing about, at least you’ll find it an enjoyable combination of opinion, facts about the whisky and the distillery that produces it (or at least the one that bottles it), a bit of humor, and some notes which may or may not prove helpful in deciding if this is a whisky for you.
Now I would be remiss if I were to not lay out certain assumptions at the outset of this grand adventure (yes, I know that when you assume, you make an “ass” out of “u” and “ume”, but I have yet to find anyone named Ume, and even if I did, I’m sure that one more is just going to be a drop in the bucket for the poor fellow.
Undeterred by the plight of this hypothetical individual, I therefore assume:
• My audience has at least a passing interest in whisky,
• Is inclined to look at existing resources on the internet or literature when investigating a particular whisky, and
• Can read or has someone who can on retainer (obviously, else you probably wouldn’t have gotten this far).
So with those three conditions met, I shall continue.
The experience of whiskey is primarily one which is enjoyed through smell and taste — the two senses which are perhaps the most entwined of all. Anyone who has had a cold has likely experienced a muting of flavors. This has a lot to do with the olfactory (scent) receptors in our and the connection between our mouth and nasal passageway (I know you whisky enthusiasts already know this, so I’m only restating it for the person reading over your shoulder who probably doesn’t). When we nose (smell) a whisky, we are getting detecting the aromatic compounds which have collected above the whisky in our glass. When we taste, part of those same aromatics are traveling up from our throat through the back door of the nose and again hitting the olfactory receptors. This is why often you pick up some of the same flavors when you taste the whisky that you found on the nose, and why sometimes others seem to appear as you nose the whisky again after having that first sip.
Now taking this a step further, the olfactory receptors are a bit unique in that they are wired into the part of the brain responsible for memories. This is the reason why people associate Mom with apple pie, popcorn with movies, and the sickly-sweet and slightly cinnamon scent of Goldshlager with poor decisions and lingering regret (I can’t be the only one here, be honest). The association of smells in our brain with memories, however, gives me, as an author, an edge. While I cannot impart memories directly, I can use words and language to craft the next best thing — images in the mind’s eye, which, conveniently is memory-adjacent (most people don’t know this).
At this point, I’m going to make another assumption: that you’ve read something this far in your life where you were able to instantly see the image that author laid out for you. Perhaps it was a particular scene or a character or an object. Perhaps it was the feeling or the tension between two characters. Perhaps it was simply the dialog which seemed so realistic that you felt as if you’d heard it spoken. I attended a course wherein one of the presenters, an award-winning advertising writer named Chris Maddock, explained that the best way to describe something to an audience was to use shape, color, and what he called “comparisons to the known” — shorthand for comparisons to things which the audience is already aware of or has experienced.
There is a reason why every exotic meat such as frog legs or rattlesnake tastes like chicken — every meat-eater and even some vegetarians knows what chicken tastes like. But if you tried to explain the taste of chicken to someone who had never had it, what would you say? Tastes like rattlesnake, of course. Or frog legs. Or something else that the person was familiar with and could use as a reference point. And so I intend to give to you an online reference of the whiskies that I have tasted in text form. At best, I hope that you find them useful and help you to make decisions based on my experiences — a text-based reference library for you to peruse and glean insight. At worst, perhaps a momentary but enjoyable waste of time that you won’t regret. Either way, you’ll at least know what whiskey does and doesn’t taste like chicken.
We know a few things about whisk(e)y. From Brain-to-Glass ©
