How to drink a Scotch

I was invited to have a lamb dinner with friends back in August.  After we ate, a friend of mine offered to share some of his Balvenie 17 Year Old / Sherry Oak scotch.  I could tell by the barely contained grins on my so called friends faces that whatever it was that was inside that bottle, it was not Balvenie. 

Being an easy going guy I decided to let the prank play out.  Trying to figure out what my friends were giving me was no different than the way I would normally approach tasting a scotch I never tried before.

First, you look at the color.  Hold your glass up to the light and take a good look.  In general, scotches are amber in color.  The deeper and richer the color, the longer it has been in the barrel.  If the color is lighter, it usually means it has seen less time in the barrel.  Make sure that you have a decent amount in your glass.  Too little and the color may appear lighter and therefore give you a false reading.  The color of the stuff they were offering me was strongly leaning toward the yellow side of the spectrum.  I got two things from this observation 1) that this was a younger scotch than what was listed on the bottle and 2) it was probably closer to 10 or 12 years in age.

Second, you check out its legs.  Take your glass and swirl it around.  You want to have a film of whisky coating the inside of the glass about an inch or so above the contents when at rest.  When the coating drains down the glass it leaves behind drip trails, or “legs,” that you can observe.  What are you looking for?  You are looking to see how fast the legs form, how fast they disappear, and how thick they are.  The longer the legs take to appear, the greater the length of time until they disappear, and the thicker they are all indicate that the scotch is older.  In this case, the legs appeared quickly, ran quickly, and were on the thin side…almost watery.    This further confirmed that the scotch inside the bottle was younger than what my friends would have me believe.  I should also point out that the legs were not the worst I have ever seen which also leads me to believe that what’s inside the bottle was in the 10 year old range and not vodka with food coloring in it.

Next, you sample the bouquet.  This is also referred to as “nosing.”  They both amount to the same thing: smelling your drink.  Do not stick your nose in the glass and snort.  Much like taking a quick glimpse at the sun, taking a nose full of alcohol will leave an after image on your senses.  Instead, try wafting the glass side to side under your nose at about the same level as your lips.  You can also hold the glass steady and use your other hand to waft the scents toward your nose.  I prefer the former to the later.  What does your sense of smell tell you?  Depending on your sense of smell as well as the library of smells you are familiar with, you can get more information from your nose than you could from the first two steps combined.  Is the smell of alcohol overpowering the rest of the scents?  Do you detect floral, citric, or nutty notes?  Do you smell smoke?  Each scent you can pick out will further narrow down the contents of your glass.  Personally, my sense of smell is shot.  I can still pick out obvious scents, but not the more subtle ones.  So what did I smell?  Well, I got the smell of alcohol right off the bat.  The longer the whisky ages in the barrel the more the alcohol smell mellows, allowing the rest of the bouquet to become more evident.  So add one more vote toward a young scotch.  One thing I did not smell was smoke or peat.  Peat is a common factor in the production of Scotch whisky.  Some distilleries use more, some use less.  This is not to say that what was in the bottle was some other whisky (i.e. Irish whiskey or Rye), just that peat did not play a big part in its production.  This further narrows the possibilities of what could be inside the bottle.

Finally, you get to take a sip.  But before you do that, what do you know?  What are you prepping your brain to expect?  What do you think I should have expected?  Well, we know that I have some sort of alcoholic liquid in my glass.  Its yellow, has rudimentary legs, and the alcohol smell indicates that it’s going to have a little bite to it.  I didn’t smell a lot of peat, so it’s probably not from the western coast of Scotland or Islay malt.  Because I think it’s young, I will assume that it is also inexpensive.   That is a big clue since there are not that many inexpensive single malt whiskies out there.

I take a sip…

It had the bite I expected, but not as bad as what I was prepared for.  It wasn’t loaded with flavor, but the legs should have tipped me off to that.  It had a little of the character that you get from traditional oak barrels (a little oakey with hints of vanilla.)  All in all a "summer" scotch; meaning that I would not be against having it with some ice on a hot summer day.  Something that you sip with the aim of keeping cool more than conducting mental exercises into the complexity of its character. 

It turned out to be Yamazaki 10 year old whiskey.  Someone in camp liked the bottle it came in and transferred it into the Balvenie bottle (sacrilege!)  It’s a Japanese whiskey modeled after scotch whisky.  There was nothing wrong with it, just not enough right with it to induce me to purchase a bottle.  For those of you wondering, The Singleton’s 12 year old is my favorite summertime scotch: its light, has a hint of bite, but has flavor and smoothness that belies its age and price.

Now, go forth and drink.  Enjoy your explorations.  A good idea is to keep a whisky diary when you drink.  Keep track of what you see, smell and taste until you develop a knack for this and come up with your own criteria when you are out tasting.

Sláinte