Welcome to the latest Summerton ClubWHISKY REVEALED

Ian Wisniewski (food, drink and travel writer, broadcaster and all-round whisky expert) poses the question for Dan Szor (Cotswolds Distillery Founder):

What approach do you take when tasting whisky, what do you look for, and how do you assess what you find?

“When tasting whisky I take a pretty standard approach, that is to score it on nose, palate and finish. Recently I find that I’ve moved to give a bigger weight to nose as there is more bandwidth in terms of flavour/aroma perception and it involves less drinking and wear & tear on the palate (when trying to get through a lot of whiskies). But then again, there are a number of whiskies and other spirits where I become disappointed by a nice, big nose which leads to a disappointing flavour, body and balance on the palate, so the actual taste is very important for me.

I typically like big, bold flavours created by a good fermentation regime and lots of oils, and equally important to me is a good balance between distillate character and wood – I really don’t like overuse of wood.  Finally, length and quality of finish is really important, mainly in cases where there is none (which typically doesn’t happen with whiskies that meet expectations on the palate, but when it does happen – i.e. a fast disappearance of flavour following the taste – it is really upsetting).  Very often I will use a simple rating system of 30 points, 0-10 for nose, 0-10 for taste and 0-10 for finish – with 5 being the minimum score for a whisky without perceived technical faults.