The Journal
How to Taste Whiskey Like You Know What You're Doing (No Pretension Required)
Nosing, sipping, finishing: the whole ritual, minus the snobbery. A plain-English guide you can use at the counter today.
There is a version of whiskey tasting that involves a lot of vocabulary and a slightly competitive atmosphere. We are not interested in that one.
Here is the useful version, which takes about ninety seconds to learn and works whether you have been drinking whiskey for thirty years or thirty minutes.
Look, briefly
Color tells you something, though less than people claim. Generally, darker suggests more time in barrel or a more active barrel. It is not a quality measure and some producers add coloring, so hold it loosely.
Tilt the glass and watch how it runs back down the side. Slower usually means higher strength or more body. Interesting, not important.
Smell, and do it correctly
This is the part most people rush, and it is where most of the flavor actually lives.
Keep your mouth slightly open and bring the glass up gradually. Do not stick your nose in and inhale hard, because you will get a face full of alcohol vapor and lose the next thirty seconds.
Nose it two or three times. The first pass is mostly alcohol. By the third, the actual smells start separating out.
Whatever you smell is the right answer. If it reminds you of a specific thing from your own life, that is more useful than any tasting note somebody else wrote.
Sip, and hold it
Take a small amount and let it sit on your tongue for a few seconds before swallowing. Move it around a little.
The first sip of anything is mostly a shock to the system. The second one is where you actually start tasting. Never judge a whiskey on the first sip.
Notice where it hits. Sweetness up front, spice on the sides, bitterness at the back. Notice the texture too, whether it is thin and quick or thick and coating.
The finish
After you swallow, pay attention to what is left and how long it stays. This is where whiskeys separate from each other more than anywhere else. Some vanish immediately. Some sit there for a full minute and change while they do it.
A long finish is not automatically better. A long unpleasant finish is worse than a short clean one.
Water is allowed
A few drops can genuinely open up a high strength whiskey. Anybody who tells you this is wrong is telling you about themselves, not about whiskey.
The only rule that matters
If you like it, it is good. That is the entire framework.
Try it at the counter.
Reading about this is fine. Doing it with somebody standing there to talk it through is better. Four dollars a taste, any bottle on the floor, no experience necessary and no quizzes.
Barrel & Flask
4949 Tamiami Trail N, STE 107, Naples, FL 34103
Liberty Plaza, one quarter mile south of Pine Ridge Road
Tue to Thu 11 to 7, Fri 11 to 8, Sat 10 to 7, Closed Sun and Mon