Increase your whiskey knowledge with whisky tasting

Tasting whiskey is the way to get to know new whiskies and you do that by taking a whisky every now and then when you have the opportunity to do it. Here, whiskey tastings and whisky festivals are the definite time to introduce you to new whiskies.

You've already been on your way with your whiskey knowledge and you've already come across quite a few whiskies you've had here and there. But that's more of a coincidence because you've been somewhere where you've come across a whiskey you don't know yet. How are you going to expand this?

Whisky festival

Large whisky festivals are organized annually for serious whisky fanatics at a number of places in the Netherlands, but also for novice whisky drinkers is a whisky festival very interesting. Unlike a whisky tasting, you won't be stuck with a selection of a few types of whiskey and you can taste a whole world of whiskies.

At whisky festivals, all major whisky brands and whisky importers are often ready to let you taste their best selection of whiskies and you will also get to know the people behind the whiskey immediately. An atmospheric evening, which can last about 3 hours, is often complete with live music and snacks. Here, a ticket will soon cost 30 - 50 euro.

Whisky tasting

If you don't necessarily want to travel far to experience a whisky festival, but you want to taste whiskey a bit more often, you can find it locally near you by searching for whisky tastings. These are small tastings where a cafe or liquor store has organized a tasting evening.

Here you usually get 5 to 6 whiskies to taste, which in itself is enough to tease your palate with whiskies that you haven't invented yet. Such a tasting usually involves a selection of whiskies from an importer where the whisky importer tells you something about their whiskies and you get to taste them. Usually a tasting like this one costs 25 euro per person with a snack.

Tasting whiskey at home

Of course, you can also taste whiskies at home. The disadvantage is often that you have to bring multiple whiskeys into your home. But buying whole bottles might be a little crazy. If you are occasionally with friends to do a tasting at home, you can use your own whiskey stock for this.

But a nice solution for this is whisky samples. To not get whole bottles each time but to be able to taste several whiskies, sample bottles are ideal. This allows you to pay at least 4 to a maximum of 10 euros for a 5 cl bottle with which you pour three test glasses. And if you make a tasting of this, you can organize a fun tasting evening at your home with 6 different sample bottle.

Whisky types & tasting

There are many different whiskey types where the origin of the ingredients, way of firing and country of origin obviously have the greatest influence on the colour, taste and alcohol percentage of the whiskey.

This makes the differences in the types of whiskey very important to understand when you are going to taste multiple whiskies. If you start with a heavy smoky and antsweet whiskey, your taste palette is already spoiled at the start, so you will no longer experience other whiskeys as you should be.

So start with a young, floral whiskey that has a granig taste. Then work the order of whiskeys with slightly sweet whiskey, then ripe whiskies, lightly smoked whiskies and only last full ripe smoked whiskies. You'll find that if you keep that order, you'll experience more and more flavor. In the long run, it becomes harder to taste other whiskies and be able to appreciate when you already have 10 on them.