The Mystery of Whisky Tasting Notes

If you’ve ever been to a whisky tasting or watched a whisky review online you’ll have no doubt heard some questionable tasting notes being touted. A couple of my favourites include, “a burnt oven glove” and “the bottom of a mechanics tea mug”. Whilst certainly evocative, It did leave me wondering ‘is this guy just making these up?’ So here we will explore that very question, are tasting notes real?

I’ll start with a simple and condensed answer, yes, tasting notes are very much real and offer a chance to connect a particular taste with familiarity. Though it certainly is not as simple as that. This is because taste and aroma are incredibly subjective and I for one have always been a staunch believer in letting people experience their own unique adventure when tasting a new dram. However, not everyone has the neural connections to link a certain taste to a memory of what that is, whilst clearly some have some exceptionally whimsical connections between taste and linking that to its identity.

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The Journey of Whisky Tasting

When you first venture into the world of whisky, you'll find plenty of gurus and guidebooks explaining whisky heritage, a little about the processes that produce such exquisite spirits, plenty of people telling what they have tasted but very little about how to taste a whisky yourself and what to look out for.

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So, What Should You Be Looking For?

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Region - Where was the whisky distilled. This can provide some early thoughts on what to expect.

Cask Type - What was in the cask before Scotch. This is key factor as the cask imparts as much as 70-80% of a whiskies final flavour.

Age - How old is the whisky. This is not a hard and fast factor but can offer some guidance.

Water - Water can allow you to unlock and open up hidden flavours at lower alcohol percentages. Though always start at full strength as you wouldn't want to miss those top notes.

Nose, Palate, Finish - The three pillars of tasting. As much as 80-95% of taste comes from your sense of smell, let your nose enjoy the whisky first and tell you what it finds, then cover all corners of your palate before you consume, and finally long breaths out through your nose to enjoy what flavours linger on the finish.

Imagination - Finally, your imagination, or more directly your ability to let a taste fire a neural pathway to a memory that clicks.

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Imagine describing the aroma of a particular whisky to a friend in the form of a place or a memory — like a freshly mown lawn on a summer afternoon, or the cozy familiarity of a Christmas day. These memories and metaphors are excellent ways to elaborate a taste experience and a great place to start when looking to understand what you are tasting, linking the flavours and aromas to a memory, a feeling or a place in time. A rabbit hole that will allow your brain some creative freedom to explore what your senses are discovering.

Once you begin to tie those tastes together with an evocative memory you can start to think about what flavours might make sense for that place in time. For example, if you were reminded of Christmas, you might taste Christmas cake, nutmeg, cinnamon, gingerbread. If you were reminded of something a little more summery, you may have tasted some fresh fruits, pears, apples, mango. Connecting a memory to a taste will allow you to frame what exactly you are tasting.

There are a number of flavours that are synonymous with whisky that you could be on the look out for such as vanilla, malt, confectionary, oak, spices and fruit. Among these typical flavour types you can hone into the more nuanced descriptions you might find such as vanilla cream, marshmallow, fudge or caramel, citrus, orchard fruits, berries, baking spices, gingerbread. This takes time, so allow yourself patience to hone your sense to firstly taste the vanilla and then the fresh vanilla cream for example.

Then when you become well versed in identifying those flavours and matching that neural pathway, you might start to notice even more unique nuance to a flavour you have started to understand, orchard fruit might then become overripe green apples, citrus might become lemon and lime cordial, caramel might become butterscotch wrapped sweets.

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The Influence of Region and Cask Types

The region a whisky was produced can be a helpful guide for directing certain flavour profiles. Islay for example - coastal peat, Speyside - Sweet and subtle complexity, Highlands - bold, fruity and robust, Lowlands - Light, fresh and summery, Campbeltown - Oily, coastal and briney. Though be careful not to get too hung up on region, while geographic whisky areas do tend to have a stereotypical style, often there is a plethora of different expressions, finishes and experimental releases from any one distillery. You may often see whisky tasting experts being caught out with a peated expression that would suggest Islay but actually being from Speyside, far from the stereotypical style of the region.

Cask types and finishes are often a good indicator of where a flavour profile may be leading you towards. Familiar partners for whisky maturation are of course sherry, port and bourbon. While in recent years more unique finishes are becoming more available such as rum, wine, madeira or even tequila.

The type of cask finish can offer some guidance but is again not foolproof, as there are many varieties of sherry, bourbon and wine that will all offer different characteristics.

Oloroso sherry for example is a little more on the dry and spicy side, while Pedro Ximenez sherry is more fruity, luscious and sweet. Bourbon will typically produce those sweet vanilla notes but may also contribute a coconut or caramel. Wine of course is so incredibly varied that there are a huge variety of flavours they can impart from cherries, to plums, tannins, earth, blueberries, to tart lemon.

You may find you develop a taste for a certain finish that often provides a consistent taste for you, though often this has had the hand of an expert whisky blender to pull a number of single casks together to produce their desired final product. A single cask finished in a familiar cask type might just surprise you.

What About Age and Adding Water

Age is of course a helpful factor to consider when tasting whisky. Age doesn't always equal a better flavour but it does produce something that only time can, intricate complexity. An older whisky will typically have taken on a lot of the oaky influence, nutty, possibly some woody spice and the younger malt flavours will be less prominent. While a younger whisky will generally have much more apparent malty character. Take time to let your pallet explore the flavours at different levels.

Water in your whisky is considered sacrilege by some factions but water is an integral ingredient to explore and enjoy the full plethora of flavours held within a whisky. Especially if that dram is cask strength. There are different flavours and aromas to be found as water is added one tiny drop at a time. Opening the pallet, softening those more dominant flavours and unlocking what is underneath.

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The Whisky Flavour Wheel

While the above prompts are very helpful to get an overview, lets get into what you might find in each dram.

You may have heard of a flavour or tasting wheel, a novel concept developed by some very knowledgeable whisky folk. You may not have heard of the flavour spiral, this is a concept that we think better reflects the appearance of different aromas and flavours that are found at different depths of the whisky. A dram is a multi-dimensional layer of flavours that can be found at the initial sip at full strength, with new flavours appearing as you come back for a second taste. Adding water drop by drop allows you to taste what flavours are hidden underneath those top notes.

Consider these layers when you next taste a whisky and look for something different each time you come back to explore your dram.

Exploring Different Whisky Flavours

Taking inspiration from famous flavour wheels our spiral is made up of a combination of flavours imparted from distillation and maturation:

• Cereal: Derived from malted barley and giving an oaty, toast, nutty and cerealy flavour.
• Fruity: Delightful sweet, fragrant, fruity scents resulting from fermentation and distillation. Citrus, tropical, berries, stone fruit, orchard fruit. Mango, apples, banana.
• Floral: Think leafy, grassy, or hay-like scents, sometimes reminiscent of parma violets, gorse bushes, orange peel.
• Peaty: Distinctive phenols infused into the malt during kiln drying, famous in Islay malts, spanning from wood-smoke to tar and medicinal iodine, some earthy sweetness.
• Feinty: Appearing midway through the spirit run, ranging from biscuity and toasted scents to tobacco-like, leathery and honey, evolving during maturation in quality casks.
• Sulphury: Emerging during distillation and maturation, often considered unpleasant and removed by copper contact. Can bring meaty, rubbery, barbecue.
• Woody: Vanilla-related and nutty aromas originating from American white oak, directly linked to age, enhancing complexity, fragrance, and spices.
• Winey: In casks previously filled with wine and or fortified wines like sherry, port, madeira, luscious fruit, tannins, spices, cola cubes.
• Briney: Often associated with distilleries close to the coast that claim a maritime character infused from the sea air, producing salty and oily spirit. Think Springbank and Old Pulteney.
• Confectionary: Typically sweet, this flavour comes from crystallised sugars found in the malted barley and the caramelised wood in the casks. Marshmallow, caramel, fudge, coconut.
• Meaty: Found in spirit that has had a

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There is a world of flavour and a world of subjective preference, so taste as much variety as possible and begin to hone your tasting skills. Though you now have a comprehensive guide on what to look out for.

To tailor your own whisky and create your own unique flavour profile, reach out to our expert team at info@tailoredspirits.co.uk and we will be happy to guide you.