Pt 1 of 2 - How to Taste Whisky with Richard Paterson

You know, that's what he called him. You know Henry VIII? Yeah. Henry VIII. Well, he came on the throne, but what he did, they had the disillusion of the monasteries between 1536 and 1541, and he made all these monks redundant, and they had to leave their monasteries in England, and already the art of distillation was known to them, so they had nowhere to go, and that's why they came into Scotland. So they helped to bring the art of Scotch whisky here. So that's why they distilled it in this stuff. You certainly want to see that stuff. This is actually the very beginning here. This is what the distillers of the last centuries would have produced, but what you must remember is this is the very beginning. This is when it's not been matured in any casks. You've seen this before? I've heard a little bit through Charlie. Okay, so two things you must... Oh, Charlie. Okay, no offense to you, Charlie. Okay, the things you must remember, Sue, two things you must always remember. First thing, if I ever see you holding a glass like this and nosing like this, I'll kill you. Okay, got it. Now, the second thing is, what you do is, in order to tell you something about the whisky, you pour it in the glass, okay, and you're slowing it on the floor, okay, because what you want to do is to actually clean out the glass to make sure it's up to the actual quality that you're looking for. So you must hold it in the glass like this. This is 68% alcohol. You swirl around and you say, hello. Then you come up to it and say, how are you? Then you come back up and say, quite well, thank you very much. So it's like meeting you for the first time. I don't know you, lovely lady, everything about you, fantastic, but how am I going to get to know you? The only way is to talk to you and communicate, and that's exactly what I'm doing with the whisky, all right? Okay. So when you come up, you go, hello, 68% alcohol hits your nose, all right? So you forget the alcohol and you go back into the middle of it and you say, how are you? You've got two nostrils. One will be better than the other. That's why you've got to move around to make sure that the time of the day, whether it be in the morning or the afternoon, will tell you more you need to know. But if your eyes start flickering when you're nosing this new spirit, that means you're nosing it too aggressively. In this sample room, I've had three women already collapse and faint in front of me. Over the period of time, because they've nosed it too aggressively, you must do it gently. So when you nose it, it immediately tells you something about the spirit. It says to you, hello, I'm in a bad mood. I'm hot, I'm fiery, I'm peppery, I'm aggressive. I want to go to sleep. I've got a bit of cereal note, a bit of orange coming tang there, but I've also got damp leather and I've got baby sick. And I need to go to sleep. I need to sleep for at least 12 long years. So when the illicit distillers started producing their whiskey, they couldn't wait 12 years. They could only wait 12 seconds. That's why they put mint sugar thyme into the whiskey, then they drank it, and within half an hour, they were dead. Because they learned the hard way. They were only distilling it maybe once, not twice. It's only when they distilled it twice did they then purify it. So that's the beginning of it. Okay, that's the beginning of it there. Just to look at it, just to show you, all right? All right, so what you've got here, there's the beginning of the whiskey. It's not been in the cask, all right? This is very important. This has not been in the cask, so therefore it's not taken any colour from the wood, okay? Because, you know, wood maturing the whiskey is what it's all about, nurturing it the same way. Now, remember the new spirit. Have you any children? Yes. How many children have you got? Two. Two. Boys or girls? Boys. Boys. How old are they? 17, 21. All right, if you get them, what you need to do is blindfold yourself and then smell them on the hairline, and you should be able to detect the difference between the two because when a mother is actually holding a baby, she's actually going to kiss the children on the hairline, and that's where the smell is. It's the same with the spirit here. That's the basic smell that will remain all the way through the malt whiskey, and you'll see it reflected in this here, all right? Putting it around the wrong way. So this is Dalmore. This is Dalmore, okay? This is 12 years old. This is 70% American white oak. It's been matured, 70% American white oak, 30% sherrywood from Jerez de la Frontera, okay? So because the sherrywood is going to nurture it, it's going to soften it down. It's going to give it a softness, a roundness that's been in the cask for at least a finishing period of at least two years. So it's going to have an influence. Like your perfume that you're wearing today, it'll have 26 different nuances. It's the same with the whiskey. So once again, you put it in the glass, put it on the floor, okay? And then you make sure you come back to it and smell it again. Hello, how are you? And there you are, quite well. And what you're going to see here, you're going to see an extension. So if you smell this one first, and then smell this one here secondly. And what you'll see is the softness coming through, but really notes like orange, citrus, marzipan. These are all connotations reflected in the Dalmore distillery. Okay, just have a smell. Remember, do it slowly. Bring it up to your nose, smell it, and pull away. If your eyes go funny, you've got to smell it even very gently. Just make sure you're thinking like that. Pull away, don't be thinking, all right? So you just come back again. That's it, that's better. Now just even slower this time, even slower. And then bend and move around it and just search into it. All right, okay. So this time I want you to block off your memory. I want you to think not of the strength of the whisky, but the inner warmth, the inner soul of the whisky. You can come up a second time. So what you're going to see is stones, you're going to see cereal, but you're going to see that sort of damp leather, blotting paper, cotton wool, and then you're going to see some babysit towards the end. Just think of all these things, these connotations. Just the babysit. You know what a babysit? Remember on the shoulder all these times ago? Damp nappies and everything else, yeah. Okay, that's the beginning. When you smell the whisky, just as what you said, when you smell it like that, you'll see it's very hot, it's fiery, it's peppery. It needs to settle down. It needs to mature. It needs the warmth of the wood. Not just any wood. American white oak or Oloroso sherry butts from Jerez or Fonterra. That's what will mold it. So when you nose the second one here, you'll see it very soft now. See how it's developed? It's softened down. It's easier. But when do you drink it? How do you drink it? That's the problem. So what you need to do is you need to take water. I don't care where you are in the world, you must take up the water with your middle finger in the water. You know why? Because five times over the world when I go like that, oh gee, burnt my finger. How can you do that? Because barmen sometimes don't pay attention and you get warm water. So you must make sure you get cool water always. You take the whisky, you reduce it down to 38% alcohol, still water, all right? That will actually bring it up. But what it'll do is it'll actually begin to release more flavours and it will make it more palatable. So this is Delmore 12 years old. So what you do is you swirl it around and you give it 12 seconds in your palate. Then you wait, wait, you wait, you wait and let it come up. If I hadn't put the right amount of water in it, your eyes would flicker. So when you and I are having a drink together and you put it in your mouth and you drink, you should in fact have the amount of water that suits your palate. As soon as it does that, it'll become more acceptable. Because if it's not the right strength, if it's too strong, your eyes will flicker. You're not paying attention to my conversation, you're licking the whisky. But people don't know that. So you need to always keep it in the mouth. The worst thing is this here. It's when people say, Well, let's have a Delmore. You go like that. And then the next thing they say, Well, two Scotch whisky. And then you hear this noise. And you say, Scotch and the rocks. But who asked you to put ice in it? So well, that's what they always do. They do it in Australia, America. They do it in France, Spain. And they've now got Scotch and the rocks. When you come to Drumgold, you've got all the ice floating around. Now in the olden days, there was no ice. They didn't have any ice. So they went to the riverbeds, and they took the rocks from the riverbeds and put it in the whisky. And that's why we got Scotch and the rocks. But if you in fact, and you and I are having a drink and you hear this noise, clink, clink, clink, make sure you always take the barman and chuck that out the way. Real mess this can, I bet you. But that's what you need to do. You need to do that, all right? So that's the best way to drink it is always to take it with a little still water, keep it in the mouth, hold it, chew it, chew it, chew it. Now I'm going to show you something very rare.