Whisky Knowledge

This debunking is a bit unusual, I have to admit. It is not about whisky itself at all but rather about the perception of the Scotch whisky industry in relation to other spirit producing nations.

In many articles about whisky you can find statements like “The difference between Scotch an bourbon is that Scotch tastes smoky”. This is a generalization that is simply not correct.

For many afficionados, the ultimate way of enjoying their whisky is from single cask bottlings. But we have to keep in mind that no two casks are alike, even if they are from the same source and are stored next to each other in the same warehouse.

When you surf the the whisky web or talk to people from a distillery, one factoid constantly keeps popping up: “Distillery X is one of only six distilleries in Scotland that still have their own floor maltings”.

Single malt Scotch whisky is regarded by many as being superior to blended whisky. This is largely due to two notions:

While recapitulating the recent debate about bottle aging of whisky, something struck me. I have known it for years, but only know I saw the relation to that topic.

Why Old Kirschwasser is Crystal Clear

After having looked at the specifics of nosing and tasting whisky in the second part of this series, let’s now move on to the actual rating process which means applying a score to a whisky.

To make it short: Rating a whisky means giving it a score that indicates how well you like it. You can use 1 to 5 stars or a certain range of points or whatever. In the whisky world, a 100 point system is predominant which was adopted from wine rating by Michael Jackson.

How do we react, when whe drink a malt that we don’t know what distillery it is from?

With the cheap supermarket malts this is not much of a a problem. You get a whisky that is just about drinkable, and it’s not really important to know if it’s from Glen X or Glen Y.