🥃 How to Taste Whiskey - Comprehensive + Advanced Topics

Over the years, I have been taught a variety of tasting techniques. Some swear by certain mouth movements while others prefer a simple sip. To develop the tasting method used in reviews on this site, I analyzed more than a dozen tasting guides from industry influencers, manufacturer's, and equipment suppliers in addition to my aforementioned experience. I believe this process allows for the most accurate personal diagnosis of a particular spirit, but ultimately the most important thing is that YOU enjoy your whiskey experience. Chase your muse with brown water however you please. 

Preparation

As with most activities, being properly prepared can greatly increase both the pleasure and proficiency of the experience. For the best results, consider:

• Glassware - We have a whole guide on stocking your bar with the right drinking vessels. To summarize: a Glencairn or other glass with a tulip top, like a small red wine glass or traditional snifter, works best. Due to their shape, these glasses help concentrate aromas for easier nosing and peak flavor. 
• Water - Adding a drop of water to a glass of whiskey sometimes helps to open up the flavors. Ethanol (the primary alcohol) is a polar molecule as are many of the flavoring molecules with the effect that those flavor molecules can become "trapped" in a wrapping of booze due to mutual attraction. Introducing water, another polar molecule, temporarily disrupts this binding as the alcohol, water, and flavoring compounds try and find their new equilibrium. You'll also want to thoroughly cleanse your palate between whiskies if tasting multiple. Bonus points for being fancy and having a pipet.
• Temperature - Room temperature is likely best for tasting, but what is room temperature? Scotch distillers often recommend a temperature between 15-18C(60-65F) while bourbon or American whiskey guides often suggest 18-22C (65-72F). That being the case, if you want to chill your glass beforehand it will likely pull the temperature into the lower range. I will readily attest that I just take it at shelf temperature, whatever that happens to be for the time of year. If possible, don't store your whiskey above 72 degrees or in the sun as this can cause the liquid to degrade at an accelerated rate. 
• Crackers (Optional) - To aid in palate cleansing a mild or unflavored cracker can be helpful. Eat the cracker and then wash down the salty flavor with the water to reset your tongue.  
• Pen/Paper (Optional) - To record your thoughts! It's always interesting to look back on these notes at a later date or to compare with friends. Speaking of friends, tastings are a great opportunity to get people together. It provides an easy conversation topic, and there are truly no wrong answers in matters of taste. 

If you're going to go to the trouble of coming up with fun pairings or doing a detailed tasting, it is also worth considering what else you've subjected your tongue and nose to on the day. Some serious judges eat a piece of the same cheese every day to see if there is something off with their sense of taste. If you have burned your tongue, have a stopped-up nose, or have eaten something super citrusy/spicy prior to a tasting, the best glassware and tasting techniques in the world won't be enough equalize the quality. Drink your daily driver and wait for more optimal timing. 

Tasting Technique

Typically, you will see whiskey tasting broken into four main steps: visual appreciation, nose, palate, and finish. Some guides group palate and finish though I find it helpful to think about them as separate assessments. While we approach these as an ordinal process, it is worth mentioning that I would recommend iterating through all steps for a given whiskey multiple times. Does the flavor profile change with the addition of water? Does chilling the whiskey mellow out some rough notes enough to find finer details? Comparing neat, with water, and slightly chilled is three separate tasting rounds just for one bottle. It's also interesting to try whiskey as it oxidizes over time; a little more head space and time in the bottle can take the edge off some of the more hazardous pours. In any case, the general process is the same regardless of the preparation.

1. Visual Assessment

Sight plays a surprising role in how we experience taste though a process called multisensory integration. The brain processes information from multiple senses (sight, smell, taste) simultaneously to create a unified perception. When we see food, the visual information is sent to the brain, activating areas associated with smell and taste based on previous experiences and learned associations.

Color

Hold the whiskey up in good light to about eye level. What does the color look like? Whiskey is primarily colored depending on the type of cask used and the duration of the aging. Some manufacturers may add E150a (caramel coloring, made by burning sugars) which will make the whiskey look older and may impact the mouthfeel, but does not impart any flavor. In abstract, a darker whiskey should be more flavorful though that is not to say light bodied or colored whiskies may also have a multitude of flavors that may have been buried with additional proof or aging.

Based on color scans of more than 400 whiskey photos, I created the below spectrum which differentiates between Yellows and Reds diverging from clear (there's no blue whiskey that I've seen - the remaining primary color). Others will present their own scales, but much like paint colors what matters most is dialing in the eye of the beholder (or in this case whiskey holder).

Alternatively, you could use the Gardner/APHA/Hazen color scale which is the industry standard in industrial chemicals for measuring color in transparent liquids, with colors ranging from light yellow to dark brown.

Ultimately, the main value assessing color outside of industrial applications is to tune your own eye and expectations. Any scale that you're consistent with will do fine. 

Clarity

At lower temperatures, whiskey with an alcohol concentration of less than 46 ABV can become cloudy. You may see this when adding water or ice. Chill filtering removes the esters/fatty acids that cause this effect, though most agree that the process removes some aromatic character. Most Whiskey will be relatively uniform in color. Clarity may give us a hint of the mouthfeel to come, but other than that just admire the dram!

Viscosity/Legs

Grasping your glass by the base, give the whiskey a little swirl. Does the liquid leave a trail which slowly runs back down the walls of the glass? Is it slow or fast? To a trained eye, the speed and thickness of these "legs" is often told to indicate the alcohol content of the whiskey but really is a better marker for the age of the spirit as flavorful chemicals build up during extended aging and contribute to the thickness of the pour. 

2. Nosing - The Nose Knows

Oft cited research tells us that 80-90% of what we think of as "taste" is really due to smell. Enter the nosing step. The human brain can differentiate between thousands of nuanced smells and we experience these smells with slight differences depending on if they come through the orthonasal (nose) or retronasal (mouth) passage. Proper nosing will wake up our palate and help tune our taste buds to the flavors to be found in the Whiskey.

1st Nose 

When initially approaching the whiskey, the main goal is to wake up your tender sniffer without smothering it with alcohol. To do this, I recommend either taking short inhalations with the glass a few inches away or by placing the glass upright with the lip slightly above your nose and breathing normally. It is very normal to not get much besides alcohol odor at first, though after a few breaths you should start to pick up more nuanced flavors. 

2nd Nose

With the initial bite of chemical out of the way, tip the glass towards you so your nose is just outside the center of the rim (if you're drinking barrel proof or hazmat, maybe back off a smidge to your liking). Open your mouth. Take a few short breaths then a few long ones. Does the scent change? It is fairly common to get a good bit of wood or traditional whiskey smells at first before starting to feel out any fruit, botanical, other floral notes. 

Some others recommend trying to alternate nostrils or distance from the whiskey. Due to some inadvertent rapid contacts between my face and other objects over the years, I tend to pass up that step but give it a try and see what you think. 

3. Palate - Here. We. Go.

Sip the whiskey. You want just enough to evenly coat the tongue. If you feel brave, try the "Kentucky Chew" where you literally move the whiskey around in your mouth like you would chewing a piece of beef jerky. If you can, keep your lips slightly parted, letting air inside to further deepen the flavor. 

• Does it feel thick, creamy, oily, or thin and watery? 
• Do the flavors start as one thing and then shift to something else or are they uniform throughout?
• Can it rest easily on your tongue or does the alcohol make you want to immediately swallow?

Tasting Wheels - Flavors & Smells

The best tasting notes and descriptions are things that people with recognize. Describe familiar experiences and take your time. If you're struggling with adjectives, consulting a "flavor wheel" can sometimes provide inspiration. Tasting wheels are graphical representations of flavor components found in foods and beverages. They are essentially circular charts divided into sections, each representing a particular taste or aroma category.  These sections are further divided into sub-categories to provide a more nuanced vocabulary for describing the complexities of taste and aroma. 

Here are a few examples from Modern Thirst, Whiskey Magazine, and Edinburgh Whisky Academy:

Whiskey Magazine Tasting Wheel

Johnnie Walker Flavour Wheel
This is my favorite one!

Edinburg Whiskey Academy Scotch Tasting Wheel

Heaven Hill Bourbon Wheel - Match Your Taste

I would recommend going through one full cycle of tasting with just your own personal thoughts before consulting the wheel or manufacturer tasting notes.

4. Finish

The finish is what happens after you swallow. Does the flavor linger or is it gone in a flash? Are there any new flavors or does the balance of different flavors shift? Is there a strong burn or is it smooth? Consider the complexity: Does the finish have one simple flavor or does it evolve and change over time? A more dynamic and complex finish is generally considered more desirable. Breathe out through your nose: After swallowing, exhale slowly through your nose. This can sometimes reveal additional flavor nuances.

5. Write It Up - Talk it Out

So much of the fun of whiskey is sharing your thoughts with others and hearing theirs. Many also make a personal hobby of settling down in solitude to pick apart the nuances of the dram. Whether for yourself or for an audience, documenting and discussing your feelings can significantly add to the fun of the whiskey hobby. I'll eventually do a full guide on reviews but years ago started with Texacer's Guide to Reviewing. Pretty much all of the reddit whiskey communities are very welcoming and it is a bit higher quality content than any of the pedestrian bottle pics or liquor store price photos.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading! I've included a subset of my multitude of sources below. I hope this guide is helpful as you walk your whiskey journey, and that you find years of responsible fun in the hobby. Stay tuned, I'm going to eventually put together a Castle & Cairn flavor wheel, once again using science!

Sources:

• How to Taste Whisky with Richard Paterson
• Whiskey Advocate - Learn to Taste Whiskey Like a Professional
• The Balvenie Whiskey Academy: Youtube
• BourbonIT FAQ: Google Docs
• r/Bourbon Beginner's Guide: Reddit
• Texacer's Guide to Reviews: Google Docs