Beyond the flavour wheels … Exploring the language of whisky's range of flavours

摘要

You could say whisky doesn't taste of itself but borrows from other things in differing degrees. Even describing a particular whisky - a much simpler task - means digging through memories as you taste to unearth a pile of flavour references. The words we use to put a name to whisky's flavours come largely from nature, and there are hundreds of them. Nuts, fruits, spices, tobacco, leather, honey, heather, iodine, moss, hay, rubber… Tasting, identifying and describing flavour is a skill that can be learned, but novice tasters are often left groping in the dark and hoping for someone to guide them.