It seems somewhat perverse that those who most appreciate the finest spirit in the world spend great deal of their time not drinking it. They do not even go so far as serious-minded wine connoisseurs who swill it round their mouths before ejecting it. No, the master blender will use nothing other than his nose - and his experience - to assess and evaluate malt whisky. He noses rather than sips to preserve his ability to 'taste' after the first sample. The reasonong behind this is simple: unlike wine or other less alcoholic substances, a distilled spirit will anaesthetise the taste buds, the very taste mechanisms which need to be used time and time again.

Aromatics

Our sense of aromatics (or 'volatiles' as they are sometimes called) is derived from an organ known as the olfactory epithelium, located at the back of the nasal passage, which is directly linked to the brain. This helps to explain why we cannot taste so well when we have a cold.

Using the nose to detect aromatic ingredients provides a more immediate route to this area than via the back of the throat. The palate can only detect four taste elements: salt, sweet, sour and bitter. All other flavour characters are created when the palate warms the contents of your mouth and causes aromas to rise through your nasal passages to the olfactory epithelium. The palate should merely confirm the aromas detected by the nose, although there will be slight differences and the strength of individual flavours may vary.

Our sense of smell is one of the most under-used of the human senses, being relegated in most cases by sight and taste to a subordinate role and only called into use for rather crude analysis of whether something smells 'good' or 'bad'. In fact, it is one of the most subtle of the senses, capable of detecting even faint changes in style or balance, and having a rather large 'vocabulary' of its own. The tasting vocabulary used throughout this text has evolved over the years and, we hope, is easily comprehended by the reader.

The Master Blender

A master blender has an 'educated' nose and can detect more than 150 seperate flavours or characters in a whisky. Some of these will tell him that the product has been adversly affected in some way during maturation; others will indicate the type or style of wood in which it has matured. But although your senses are not as highly tuned as the blender's, each whisky has a sufficient number of different characteristics to enable you to distinguish one from another.

The Nosing

In general, the nosing of malt whiskies is carried out in a small, tulip-shaped or similar glass which, being bulbous at the base and reducing to a relatively narrow rim, releases the aromatics and concentrates them at the rim, where the nose can pick up the aromas. The sample is always diluted, or cut, with water; this releases the esters and aldehydes and thus makes the aroma more pronounced. The amount of water to be added depends on the alcoholic strength of the spirit which is being nosed. As a rough guide, malt whisky in the strength band 40% to 43% alcohol by volume (abv) should be cut with one third water, preferably a soft water - Scottish spring water - or clean tap water. Avoid waters with high mineral contents.

Higher Strength Whiskies

Other, higher strength whiskies would be cut with a greater quantity of water to reduce the sample to approximately the same strength. A high strength whisky of, for example, 60% abv, should be diluted with twice its volume of water for sampling. There is a very good reason for this. The olfactory senses are adversely affected by the high alcohol level, even to the extent of feeling pain.Dilution removes the likeihood of this pain being inflicted. The quantity used for sampling should be fairly small, to allow plenty of room for the aromatics to collect in the glass. There is enough spirit of an adequate assessment in a 25ml measure of whisky diluted with water.

You will find that different elements in the sample become dominant at different periods of the nosing. You may become confused by concentrating too hard and, very often, your first opinion will be the correct one. As you become more expert, you will discover a greater range of aromas in the glass. For example, one person may detect a hint of rubber in a whisky, while that same characteristic may come over to another as something else - liquorice, for example. The difficulkty with either tasting or nosing is in the descriptions used by individuals to describe sensation and flavour. Attempts have been made to categorise these flavours and John Lamond produced a Malt WHISKY Wheel for Aberlour. This helped identify the principal flavour characteristics, and their taste relationships, using taste bands rather like spokes on a bicycle wheel.

While it is possible to create a common language to describe the aromas, the sense of smell is very subjective. Malt whisky is a gregarious spirit, so that the next time you are with friends discussing flavour, let your nose lead your opinions. You can still have as much fun trying to describe the aromas in your own words as you will get from finally drinking the whiskies. This is the fascination of single malts.

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Copyright 2002 by Scottish Ghost