How to run a whiskey tasting night with your own blends

How to run a whiskey tasting night with your own blends

There's a fair gap between drinking whiskey and tasting it, and the gap is mostly structure rather than expense, because four small pours in order with somebody paying attention teaches you more in an hour than a year of pouring the same thing into the same glass. If you've been flavouring your own spirits it's also the fastest way to find out which of your blends actually works, and the answer is usually not the one you expected.

The licence bit, said plainly

Owning a still is lawful and selling them is lawful, and running one to actually distil spirits at home without an excise manufacturer licence from the ATO isn't, so if you're going down that road the licence is the part to sort out first. Adding an essence to a base spirit you bought is a completely different activity and it needs no licence at all. The whole thing is written up in making your own spirits at home without breaking the law.

Setting it up

• Keep the numbers down. 4 to 8 people. More than that and it stops being a tasting and turns into a party with glasses in it.
• Small pours. 15ml a sample is plenty. You want people still tasting by the fourth one.
• Use a glass that narrows. A small tulip or a Glencairn concentrates the aroma, and any clean small glass will do at a pinch.
• Label them A to D. Don't tell anybody what's what until the end, because knowing what's in the glass changes what people taste, every time.
• Put something plain on the table. Water and dry crackers between rounds, so the palate gets a reset.

A tasting order that works

Go light to heavy, so a clean unpeated blend first, then something with oak character, then a spiced or sweetened one, then the peated or smoky one last. If you open with peat everything after it tastes of peat and the night is effectively over. Give people a card and let them write on it, because the notes are what turn an evening of drinking into something you learn from.

The four questions

• Look. Pale gold through to deep amber, and the colour tells you something about how much oak contact it has had.
• Smell. Swirl it and go in gently. Smoke, vanilla, fruit, spice, or something you can't name yet.
• Taste. Small sip, and let it sit before you swallow. Notice whether it's sweet or dry and how long it hangs around.
• Feel. Silky or fiery or somewhere in between, because texture is half of what people mean when they say a whiskey is smooth.

Building a flight from your own blends

Three house made variations is a good number, and the trick is to change one thing at a time so the comparison means something. Set a baseline with a straight whiskey essence over a clean base spirit, then make a second with the same essence plus a few drops of oak. The third one gets a different essence entirely. When somebody picks a favourite you'll know exactly which variable did it, and that's worth far more than a lucky batch you can't repeat.

What to put out to eat

• Hard cheese and smoked meat, which sit well beside anything peated or oaky.
• Dark chocolate, which takes the edge off the alcohol and lifts the vanilla notes.
• Olives and plain nuts to keep people going between pours.
• Bread or dry crackers, which do the actual palate cleaning.

You don't need a crowd

Two people and four glasses on a quiet Saturday is a perfectly good tasting, and honestly you'll concentrate more than you would with a full room. The point is the comparison rather than the occasion, so run one whenever you've finished a couple of batches and want to know whether you're getting anywhere.

Shop related products

• Still Spirits Top Shelf Whiskey Essence 50ml. The straight one to use as your baseline.
• Still Spirits Smokey Whiskey 50ML. The peated end of the flight, and it goes last.
• Spirits Still Shamrock Whiskey 50ML. An Irish style with caramel warmth and a clean finish.
• Still Spirits Original Blended Whisky 50ML. A softer blended profile for the opening pour.
• Still Spirits Oak Cask 50ml. A few drops is how you make the second glass differ from the first.

Did you know we also stock the Still Spirits Air Still in the shop, and give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.

The rest is in the Still Spirits collection and the wider homebrew collection.

If you want a hand narrowing it down, Brewhilder is our homebrew adviser and it will walk you through it: Brewhilder.

Read next

• Making your own spirits at home without breaking the law.
• Turning everyday spirits into craft level infusions.
• Building complex spirits without waiting months.

I'm usually the one holding the notes and asking everybody what they can smell.

Candeece

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