So, you’ve graduated from rum and coke and left alcopops far behind you. On smuggy evenings, you may even feel like you have a handle on drinking wine…. Mmm, this bouquet is reminiscent of ripe plums falling through a field of springtime lavender… or, Its tannic structure is a tad bit insistent for my liking, but at least it’s rambunctious!.... you may say in a throw-away comment to a partner in smugginess. And bless, you feel a bit of perspiration blossoming across your temple as you hope against hope that nobody can see through your obvious and shameless bullshit. A more adventurous salty bead snakes down the back of your neck, tracing its shy path down your vertebrae before one final adventure into the depths of your ass-crack. But stop your fearful perspiring! The tasting of fine beverages is fraught with bullshit and it’s likely that no-one will call you on yours because they’re too busy bluffing their own way through sweat-streaked ass-cracks. Indeed, it takes an amateur of considerable bolshiness or a severe social incapacity to proclaim that This 15 year-old, 5-star Bordeaux tastes flat and one dimensional – let’s sangria the shit out of it! But, fuckwit, if you have arrived at whisky tasting and think that you can equally bullshit your way through this, then go the fuck back home.
There are four categories in whisky tasting – colour, nose, palate and finish. The colour is interesting, but is a major red… or amber-ish herring with much fuss and fanfare. While it may reveal some interesting facets of whisky, as a beginner we needn’t fuss with it too much. Let’s be honest here fuckwit, the best part of any drink happens once it’s in your mouth (and the two or so hours following that). So, if you’re planning on dragging a white silk handkerchief to every whisky tasting so that you can accurately assess colour – go sit at another fucking table. A truly blind tasting will take colour out of the equation. Nose is one of the more magical sides of whisky. Where wine makes you work hard to squeeze out reluctant hints of similar fruits, whisky is a kind and generous scent merchant. For the rank amateur, there will be the heavy slugging shoe polishes, kippers, cloying bananas and caramel-toffees. But if you work hard enough, it will lift its skirts to give you malty biscuits, cinnamon and a bit of dewy heather. Just don’t try any Sheen-esque snorting or the alcohol burn will punch your unsuspecting nostrils. Now, the palate is the ecstatic climax of tasting. It is here that you feel whisky’s complexity as it takes its journey across your lips, over the tip of your tongue, and into the fearful depths of your gaping maw. Spicy chilly, sweet toffee, butter, vanilla, chewy, salty waves, smokey oak and a thousand other flavours await your rapacious taste buds!! Taste the motherfucking glory! And just when you think it’s all over, the finish pinches your unsuspecting nipples. Short and angry or long and lazy – chocolatey silk, peaty panache or even a caramel caress. It’s the last kiss blown to you as a lover escapes in a vaporous haze, pleading for you to remember them. So, stop crying, be a nice person, fuckwit and have another sip.
Once you’ve got those categories waxed, you need only remember three rules of whisky tasting. Even you can remember three rules, right, fuckwit? Good. 1. Be honest. If you can’t taste the poached egg in a béarnaise sauce that the label says you should, be a fucking grown-up, shrug and admit that it’s not there for you. Chances are, someone will agree in an overly relieved fashion (picture the bead of sweat being snatched away just before it hits the ass-crack – your honesty did that. Big up). 2. Be humble. You won’t get it all in a day. Or a year. Or two. So keep tasting, taste blind, taste with friends and on your own. After a meal or before one. Try it with breakfast even (but maybe just once – or you’ll end up Sheen-esquing your way through life). Your brain's awesome database of whiskiness will grow steadily and you’ll start getting much better. Plus whisky is delicious, so there really is no down side. 3. Be fucking nice. If there’s a first-time taster in the room, be encouraging, be friendly and don’t overwhelm them with your whisky knowledge. Unless said first-timer happens to be a pompous douche of wine-tasting bullshittery. In such a situation, ignore the third rule. Take a deep breath. Rise to your feet in a slow and reluctant manner. Appraise said douche with an awestruck and respectful gaze for a few suspenseful moments. Then, suddenly, with a banshee-like cry of Slainte, kick him/her squarely in their genitalia.