A Toast to Experience

As a hobby, whisky tasting takes patience and practice to get the most out of it, just like anything else. Experience has to be accumulated. I did not start off drinking single malts, let alone scotch. But when I discovered I had a taste for it, I worked my way up through the ranks.

It is important not to bite off more than you can chew when it comes to scotch. You shouldn't go out and buy a bottle of Laphroaig if you hav not tasted Johnnie Walker or Dewars. For one, it's awfully cocky, but when you start off with the classics (Glenfiddich 12, Glenlivet 12, for instance, or in my case Glenmorangie Original) you establish a baseline from which you develop your tastes and opinions. For the same reasons, I have never tasted super-premium single malts that require previous experience with younger, less complex malts. Then again, I don't know anybody who will let me have a glass and I can't afford to splurge on those bottles. Scotch is an investment, in pleasure perhaps, but the enjoyment of it is something that can be cultivated.

That said, the absence of reviews on less complex or less expensive whiskies only has to do with the fact that I have not yet taken notes on them. I assure you that Glenlivet 12 has made a distinct impression in my mind, I remember it like a song I know by heart. And it is from these whiskies I learn the essential elements that characterize scotch. And I return to them from time to time to keep from getting out of touch with the elegant simplicity of malted barely, milled to a grist, fermented and distilled, aged in oak.

When people get mixed up in elite scotches they risk becoming separated from the essential nature of whisky, the water of life, named not for the liquid itself, but for the comraderie and friendship shared between those who are priveledged to enjoy it. Despite all its complexities, whisky is for me a simple joy, and I'd never trade a glass of it for a smile from a friend.

I hope we get both. Slainte!