Whiskey School

How to taste in five steps

• Look: hold the glass to the light. Colour tells you about the cask.
• Nose: smell with your mouth slightly open. Take your time.
• Sip: a small sip, let it coat your tongue.
• Add water: a few drops can open the aroma. Neat or with water is up to you.
• Finish: notice how long the flavour stays after you swallow.

Whiskey or whisky?

Irish and American whiskey is spelled with an e. Scotch, Japanese and Canadian whisky is not.

The styles

• Single Malt: made only from malted barley in one distillery, usually in copper pot stills.
• Single Pot Still: an Irish speciality made from malted and unmalted barley. It began as a way around a malt tax in the middle of the 18th century and gives a fruity, creamy taste.
• Single Grain and Grain: made mostly from unmalted grain such as wheat, corn or rye, lighter in taste than malt.
• Blend: a mix of whiskeys from different distilleries, malt and grain together.
• Bourbon: American whiskey with at least 51 percent corn, matured in new charred oak barrels. Most of it comes from Kentucky.
• Rye: made mostly from rye, with a peppery, spicy character.
• Poitín: the old Irish spirit, clear and unaged.

Why Irish whiskey is special

Many Irish whiskeys are distilled three times, which makes them soft and smooth. Irish whiskey also nearly disappeared. A few decades ago there were only a handful of distilleries, and today there are almost 40.

Scotch in short

Scotch whisky must be made in Scotland, aged for at least three years in oak casks and bottled at 40 percent alcohol or more. The age on the label is always the youngest whisky in the bottle. Whiskies without an age on the label are called NAS.

Whiskey words from A to Z

• Age statement: the age on the label, always the youngest whisky in the bottle.
• Angel's share: the part of the whiskey that evaporates from the cask while it matures.
• Cask strength: bottled without adding water, often 55 percent or more.
• Dram: a measure of whiskey, here 2cl or 4cl.
• Finish: either the aftertaste, or a last period of maturing in a different cask such as port or sherry.
• Malt: grain that has been soaked and allowed to sprout, usually barley.
• NAS: no age statement.
• Neat: served as it is, with nothing added.
• Nose: the smell of the whiskey.
• Peat: dried earth that is burnt to dry the malt. It gives smoky, medicinal flavours.
• Single cask: bottled from just one cask.
• Wash: the beer-like liquid that is distilled.