THE SCOTCH WHISKY DIRECTORY

CHAPTER 6: FLAVOUR PROFILES AND HOW TO USE THEM

The barchart alongside each whisky listed in the Directory shows a Flavour Profile of the whisky. Each bar stands for one of the flavour categories described in Chapter 4, and the height of the bar (on a scale of one to ten) shows the strength of each flavour. The flavours are always in the same order, beginning with the five flavours which are always nice, then the eight which may be nice or nasty, and ending with soapy and musty which are generally unpleasant.

Each whisky shows a different pattern of bars. This unique combination is the whisky's Flavour Signature.

Different types of whisky show different characteristic Flavour Signatures. A single malt whisky made from lightly-peated malt will, after ten years in a moderately active cask, show a flavour profile which is high in the first five or six bars, then tails away steeply and shows little or nothing in the final five or six. There are lots of desirable flavours and only enough at low levels in the intermediate group to add to the interest of the whisky.

A heavily-peated Islay malt of similar age and provenance will show much the same Profile, but with a high bar in the middle, indicating smokiness.

A whisky which is very old but nonetheless in good condition will have a Profile which will probably be low in floral notes but high in fruit, vanilla, etc. It will have a spike indicating woodiness, but not so high as to render the whisky offensive, and possibly a bit of sulphur.

A whisky which is over the hill will show a very high woodiness bar and probably other high bars in the later part of the barchart.

A good-quality blended whisky can be expected to have moderately high bars to begin with, declining in the second section and fading away in the last.

A cheap blend will tend to show very low bars in the first and most of the intermediate sections, with perhaps some highish bars in the latter part - but not always for, as the Directory shows, there are some cheaper blends which have very respectable Flavour Profiles.

Tasting Whiskies

In inspecting whiskies, there are a few elementary rules which should be borne in mind. This has been covered by several writers, so we will deal with it briefly.

Firstly, make sure that the tasting conditions are right: that you don't have a cold; that you haven't eaten or drunk anything which makes things taste funny; that you're not downwind of a curry house or a tannery and that the tasting environment is generally free of extraneous influences. Use a proper nosing glass. Dilute the whisky to about 20% alcohol with still, flavour-free water.

Secondly, pay close attention. You mustn't expect a good whisky to reveal its all on a brief inspection, any more than you would expect to extract all its meaning from a poem on a first reading. Scotch whiskies are the Sonnets of the spirit world: they reveal layer upon layer of significance if approached with attention and diligence.

Thirdly, calibrate your responses to those of the panel. Just as the tasters varied in their perceptions of flavours, so will your judgement differ from that shown by the Flavour Signature. But the difference should on the whole be consistent. Try a few whiskies and note how your judgements differ from those of the Directory. Save in a few exceptional cases, variation will be regular, so you will still be able to judge from the Flavour Signatures how each whisky will taste.

Once you have gained experience in using the Directory, you will be able to judge from its Profiles exactly how each of the whiskies profiled will taste to you. You will be able to select for particular flavours, maximising some and minimising others, as described above. Or - which is much more difficult - to select for balances among flavour components. Much of the pleasure in good liquor comes from balance - which really means the relationships among flavour components. This is a very complicated matter and something you can happily spend years investigating: the number of possible combinations of fifteen flavours on a scale of one to ten is so large that it would not be possible to try them all in a lifetime devoted exclusively to drinking whisky.