A Beginner's Guide to Whiskey!

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Whiskey Dictionary, where I do the research to try to teach you a little something about what you're drinking. If you found yourself interested in this whole craft whiskey experience and this bourbon boom that's happening across the US, maybe you've wondered what the difference is between scotch and bourbon and rye and Canadian, all of these different types of whiskeys that are out there. If you ever wondered what the differences are, we're going to talk about those today. Now, if you're looking to learn about whiskey from a beginner standpoint, or even maybe an intermediate standpoint, and how to really get the most out of your whiskey, that's what this video is going to be. So I'm going to try my hardest to be succinct, and I'm going to try to be informative, and I'm going to try to keep this video as short as is reasonable with giving you all the information I feel you need. So if at any time you have a question or anything crosses your mind, put it down in the comments, and I'll reply to it. I promise. So let's talk about whiskey. If you are getting into whiskey, there's one thing to remember, and we all kind of consider this a bit of the golden rule. There is no wrong way to drink whiskey. And it sounds a little corny, that's for sure, but anybody telling you different is totally missing the point. The whole idea is enjoy what you're drinking, whether that enjoyment comes from learning how to nose it and taste it better, or that enjoyment comes from understanding its history, or even getting something rare, or something old. All of those things are for different people, different strokes for different folks, right? So let's talk about nosing and tasting, because it's the most fun place to start. First step when you nose and taste is to nose, or smell. Now we call it a nose, there's a few different reasons. Mostly it's just the way that it is. But I've always thought of it as saying that you're nosing a whiskey or that it has a good nose is a lot better than saying, hey, this is a smelly whiskey. So go with nose, right? And the things that you smell when you nose are called notes. So you get a note of something. So let's go into first step. Hopefully you have a whiskey with you. You don't have to have a fancy glass. You could have anything other than maybe say like a solo cup, although, you know, I guess it could work in a pinch. So go ahead and smell. Now what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to be slightly further away from the whiskey when you smell it, especially if it's higher ABV, because that will burn your nostrils a little bit. So let's go ahead and take a smell and put your nose as close as you feel comfortable. Try it a few different times. So now the proper way to smell. This is something that helps is leave your mouth open a little bit. That will help to cut down on any sort of alcohol burn that you might get as you inhale. So when you inhale, the first thing I want you to think is, do I like this? You know, yes or no? If the answer is yes. Cool. If the answer is no, especially if the answer is it smells too much like alcohol. What I want you to do is swirl the glass. Let it sit out just a little bit. You might've just poured it along with this video. So let it sit for a minute and kind of breathe. It's not like a wine where you have to decant it, but there are vapors that will disperse and they will become a little bit less of a nose to it. So go ahead and give it another nose. Now again, do you like it? Yes. Why do you like it? Is it smoky? Is it sweet? Does it smell like honey? Does it smell like vanilla? Does it smell like anything? I don't want you to dig too deep, right? I don't want you saying this smells like, you know, the leather for my grandfather's boot that he bought when I was seven. I don't know. Like something like that is, is fine. And it's good to have that mental connection and smells are going to do that for us. They're going to remind us of things, but that's not what we're doing here. We're new. We're trying this. I want you to just think whether you like it and more specifically, why do you like it? What about that whiskey makes you enjoy that smell? You know, everybody's got different opinions. This whiskey right here smells like an ashtray and I love that whiskey. That's a great one too. This one here smells like flowers. Honey smells like, um, fruits, you know, it smells like light and fruity and just good, right? So that's why I like this one. All right. Now that we've smelled this and we've thought about it a little bit, there's a couple of other things. As I mentioned, if it still smells like alcohol, you can feel free to add a couple of drops of water to this and then try it. If it's still too much, add a couple more drops. This is just whiskey, you know, watering it down. Fine. Doesn't matter. We're trying this for the first time. Don't worry about what you do to the whiskey. Make it to a point where you can enjoy it. So let's move on to the fun part. This is the tasting. Now it's alcohol. It's going to have a little bit of a burn. It's a high ABV alcohol, so just be aware of that. Don't do like I'm about to do and take a sip and immediately try to talk because I guarantee you unless you're practiced, it's not going to go well. All right. So always give somebody a cheers, cheers, and take a sip, swish it around in your mouth just a little bit. See how it coats the inside of your mouth. There's a lot going on for you right now, and I'm so excited for you. I want you to think again. Do you like it? Yes or no. That's the only question I want you to think about right now. If you do, awesome. If you don't, if it tastes bad or if it tastes too strong, add a little bit of water again. There are very few whiskeys that aren't good eventually with a little modification, and for the most part, you know, once you get used to it, you're going to be just striving for cask strength whiskeys, which are really high ABV whiskeys. You're going to grow into this. So if this is too much for you, add a little bit of water. That's always the solution. So let's have another sip, and I want you to think this time, okay, cool. I like this. It's good. Why do I like this? That's what I want you to think about with this sip. So, go ahead. Okay, now, why do I like this? I like this, again, because it's fruity. There's a lot of different things that you could taste here, though. You could taste oily. You could taste oaky. You could taste fruit. You could taste vanilla, maybe. There's a lot of little things, and I want you to think about what you like out of this. Alright, so next, we're going to talk a little bit about glasses, but I want you to spend as much time on that section of nosing and tasting as you can. When it comes to glasses, there's really only a few things to know, and I've talked about glasses at length on this channel. I'm not going to spend too long here, but there is a playlist up there if you'd like to go check it out on every glass that I've covered. So the one thing I've learned over time about glasses are that pretty much other than this, which is the Glencairn glass, most glasses don't matter. This is specifically designed to be awesome for smelling whiskey. Everything's going to make the whiskey taste the same. Smelling whiskey, in particular, the way this is tapered and makes the nose or the smells, the vapors, condense at the top, gives you the best possible way to smell this, in my opinion. Now, I've talked, like I said, a lot about different glasses on here, but if you're looking for other things to buy, and you don't want to fall to any gimmicks here, I would suggest you have a Glencairn in your cabinet, probably several so you can share with people, a Rocks glass. Now, this is awesome because if you want to just chill with a whiskey, perfect, if you want to put some ice into it. Ice does not fit in your Glencairn, usually, but ice will fit in here, and that's great. Ice can totally help you with whiskey that has too high of an APV. If you want anything beyond those two, those are basically all you need, but if you want anything beyond those two, there's a couple of things I would suggest. Number one, this guy right here. This is called the Snoop glass, and over the last, let's say, six to seven months, I have grown to love this glass. This is a metal glass. It's stainless steel, and it's food-grade stainless steel, so it doesn't impart any sort of flavors, really anything, no smells, no anything, and I use this outdoors all the time because I don't want to take a chance of dropping glass in my yard or on my deck or something like that. So I have something like this, and I get just as much enjoyment. They still have the same taper. It's not quite as perfect for nosing, but it's pretty good. Drinking-wise, it does fit ice cubes in it, and I think it's good. Now one thing that you've probably maybe heard of is called the Norlin glass. In my opinion, this is a gimmick, and I don't think you should bother with this one. Not to call out Norlin in particular, the only reason I'm really mentioning these guys is that they're very expensive, and that's a hard lesson to learn. You're going to pay $40-something for two of these, and they do nothing. They really are just a Glencairn inside of a double wall. The whole idea is that it's supposed to be a little bigger, a little nicer to hold. I disagree. These little ridges here make it kind of a little less nice to hold, and it's just a Glencairn. The whole point is to not let your hand warm up the whiskey, but don't just stand there holding your whiskey if that's a thing that you care about. Easy peasy. So let's go ahead onto different styles of whiskey. There are many different styles of whiskey, and a lot of them vary mostly based off where they're made. However, there's a lot of variation in how they're made as well. Now the ones that you've definitely heard of are bourbon and scotch. There's others, and I'll talk about them in a moment, but let me just talk about bourbon and scotch for a moment, because as I said, some of the highest selling whiskeys in the world. Bourbon whiskey is made in the United States. There are special rules around bourbon. Specifically, it has to be made of a mash bill, which is essentially, think of the recipe of how to make whiskey. When you deal with different grains that you put all together, this is what I'm talking about with a mash bill, and maybe in another video we'll talk a little bit more about how to actually make whiskey, but for now, just know that bourbon has to be 51% corn. Now contrary to that, just because I'm talking about it, rye can be made very similarly, except it's made with 51% rye. I'll give you a guess as to what wheat whiskey is made of. So in this case, we've got bourbon. Now bourbon has to be made in new oak barrels, new white American oak barrels, and a lot of those barrels end up going all over the world, because a lot of other countries don't have that rule. Now there's all kinds of debate as to why that rule came into place, but I'm sure somebody's pocketbook was getting lined. So when we talk scotch, scotch is made of barley, and in some cases, malted barley, in some cases, non-malted barley, but always barley. And a lot of the variation of scotch comes from the way that it's distilled. So when you're talking about a still, the big boiling thing that makes the alcohol rise up, again, we'll talk about that another time, that is how we're making whiskey. And scotch can be made a couple of different ways, but additionally, where it's made has a huge, huge variation on scotch. You've got Lowlands, Highlands, Campbelltown, Islas, Spacesides, there's all different types of Scottish whiskey. So when people ask, what's the difference, and this is a question I get often, what's the difference between whiskey and scotch? What they're probably meaning to say is bourbon and scotch. But just know that whiskey is all of these, all of these. But scotch is a subset, so is bourbon, so is rye, Japanese. This is what we call world whiskey. This one in particular is Australian. But world whiskey is kind of this genre or this subgroup of all different types of whiskeys where there isn't a huge whiskey presence, and it's like, oh, well, maybe Germany has a couple of whiskeys that make it out of the country. We'll just consider those world whiskeys. So you could be more specific and call it an Australian whiskey, but most people would call it a world whiskey. In this case, we've got Irish as well, as well as Canadian. And a lot of these, there's nuance to each one, and we can go into some of that nuance in other videos. Just know that there's a whole bunch of different subsets of whiskey, and calling it whiskey is totally accurate. Calling this a bourbon is inaccurate, and that's what it's about. So let's talk about how to order a whiskey at a bar. Ordering a drink at a bar can be intimidating the first time, if not potentially embarrassing. If you don't know the follow-up questions you might be asked, you might end up not getting what you actually want. So let's just go through a couple of the options so that you're not taken by surprise. Now, the first one is going to be, you know, you go up to the bartender, hey, can I have a Basil Hayden? And they'll say, sure, do you want it on the rocks? The answer may be yes, maybe no, depending on if you want ice in your whiskey. And the whole point of getting ice is to not only dull the flavor a little bit, if perhaps you're still new to whiskey and the flavor is a little harsh, totally fine, put some ice in there. But it also waters it down a little bit, so the ABV is going to drop a bit. If you don't want to get drunk, or maybe you want to have a few before you start feeling it, ice is not a terrible way to go. Now, you could also, kind of in the same vein, you could say, you know, no rocks, but you could order it with water, and that will be the same thing. He'll, you know, they'll give you a little thing of water, you can pour it in at your own leisure. So straight up and neat. Those are the two other real options. Now the problem here is that a lot of people will say straight up when they mean neat, and thankfully a lot of bartenders are smart enough to understand that, but straight up does mean something. It means pour my whiskey into a shaker with some ice, shake it or stir it, get the whiskey cold, strain it back into my glass. And they're going to put it in something like this, you know, with rocks or without rocks, and that's what straight up means. Now if you wanted a neat whiskey, you're going to get a cold whiskey, and you're going to say what the heck, right? Now the third option, of course, is neat, and that means just pour the whiskey from the bottle into the glass. It's the way the distiller intended you to try it, at least the first time, and it's how I personally usually order my whiskeys, although I'm not averse to putting an ice cube in on a hot day. Now another thing to realize is that you don't need to order a scotch whiskey. That's redundant, right? Because scotch is whiskey. You don't say bourbon whiskey. You could just say, you know, bourbon, or you could say scotch. But you also can totally ask them for recommendations. There are many bartenders out there that are probably happy to have that kind of a conversation. Just know your audience. If they are busy, don't interrupt them, you know, or ask them if they have a second to give you a recommendation, and they'll answer. You know, if they don't, they'll probably say, yeah, I'll be back in just a minute, you know, something like that. Totally fine to ask for a recommendation, but know your audience. If you're at an Applebee's, you probably don't want to be asking for a whiskey recommendation, because they'll be like, well, we got like three whiskeys on the shelf. We got Gentleman Jack, we got Jameson, and we have Maker's Mark. Which one do you want? You know, so that's probably not the right place. But if you go to a fancy steakhouse, or some really nice restaurant, totally fine to ask. And you know, maybe you'll get to try something really good. You could even ask, tell them what you're eating, and they'll try to pair it for you. So those are the different ways to order at a bar. It's really not that complicated. But if you don't know what you might get as a follow-up question, as I said, it could be a little embarrassing, or you might just not get what you want. Now, to finish this all up, I want to encourage you to try to join some sort of whiskey community. These are... there's so many of them out there. There's Facebook groups, there's a Discord that I run, I call it the Whiscord. There's hundreds of people in there, and we all talk all the time. But you know, subscribe to this channel if that works for you. But there's a bunch of other whiskey channels as well, and all of them are really good. So check out some of the other channels. Find somebody whose palate kind of matches what yours is, or somebody who you can learn from, somebody that you like, and just follow them on YouTube, or go join a group. There's so much that you can learn out there, and I can't do it all in this one video without making this a couple hours long. So anyway, thank you very much for joining me here on The Whiskey Dictionary. There's a million different resources that I can provide, and I'll put so many links down in the description with some detail around what they are. Check some of them out. I think that some of the playlists, especially the one around getting to know your whiskey, would be a great place to go after this. I'll put a link up here, but I'll also put a link down in the description. So thank you again for joining, and I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you love whiskey, and I hope you get so much enjoyment out of it. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Cheers.