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On a couple of tours in Louisville, they suggest that the first taste gives you that "Kentucky Hug"...so it basically shocks the senses to know whiskey is coming. The second sip...let it sit in the mouth for about 10 seconds, and then the 3rd and 4th sips are where you will discover the flavors. You two are awesome...love the father/son back and forth...keep doing what you are doing...you are helping so many of us "rookies". Cheers!
For me, it's 4 metrics -- Nose, palate, mouthfeel and finish. I think spending time with a bottle helps too. The first bottle I really connected with was Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, which I didn't like at first. After a around 2 weeks of having a small pour of it several evening a week, all of sudden i was hit over the head with a cherry coke note on the nose. After that I started falling in love with that bottle.
wow, the breathing out of the nose is really life changing for me, seriously. Because sometimes I wonder how I get some good finish from some sips yet sometimes I don't - the breathing out of the nose really helped in getting a good and consistent finish! Thanks guys!
Glad Trenton mentioned sommeliers - I was going to mention them as a good source of inspiration and "training" your nose and palate techniques! There's a good book called "Cork Dork" by Bianca Bosker. She's a journalist who was never into wine, but decided to take it very seriously and train to take a sommelier exam and really get to know the world of wine. Since the point of the book is to really dig deep into the process and experience, she describes what her and the people she "trains" with do to improve their ability to pick our scents and flavors (which is something sommelier documentaries I've watched before don't touch on enough). It might provide some inspiration.
When smelling the whiskey, if you smell the back of your hand it will tend to reset your sense of smell and allow you to pick up things you may have missed previously. I also like to let my glass sit after I finish the whiskey for a few minutes and then smell again. The aromas will be so much more prominent.
I was turned onto bourbon maybe a year and a half to two years ago. Didn’t know what I was doing or looking for. Luckily I found your channel and I watched you guys taste and describe different bourbons and I picked and chose the profiles I liked. I now have a decent understanding of what I want and what I’m doing and it’s thanks to Kurt and Trenton. Now I have a list of my favorites and a list of bourbons I want to try. And for the most part I’ve spent under $80 a bottle. I joined Patreon this year and will continue to be a member.
When it comes to smell I discovered one thing that has really helped me. I have always measured my pours with a shot glass. The thought process was to always have equal amounts in pours when comparing bourbons. What I noticed is if you smell the shot glass over time the smell goes through a progression that really helps picking out different notes.
I have been waiting for this. Thank you so much for the tips and strategies. I always wondered where you get your 'notes' because, frankly, I still get nothing... but will follow the tips in this video and comments to enhance my tasting experience. I also find it interesting when you have a tasting and say things like, "this is nothing like the one I have at home", or the sometimes huge differences in 'batches'... same bourbon, different dates or batches. This makes it difficult to take any recommendations from your blind tastings, and why you're sometimes very surprised by their outcomes. Oh, so it depends on which batch or how long since the bottle was first opened, or other multiple other factors. At any rate, thank you so much for your content and help steering me in the (sometimes) right direction. Best always.
Really great video. In my whiskey journey I’ve always tried to understand how people can get so many different notes on their taste and smells. It isn’t the easiest to discern all of them, but it’s fun trying!
Most whiskies have the primary notes a vanilla brown sugar and a fruity sweet smell. It’s the individual palate that takes it in various directions from there. I found it helpful to get different spices and herbs and smell them. I’m a retired chef and had the opportunity to make many different types of dishes which truly helped me with my understanding of how tasting and smelling effects one’s enjoyment of food. For me with rye’s on some not all I get a buttered popcorn smell. But I still just spend a little time smelling for me it’s about the taste that determines if I’m going to continue to enjoy what I’m drinking. Enjoy!!
Great job guys. I definitely enjoy nosing, or smelling, the whiskey nearly as much as the tasting when the aromas are more pronounced. And when the nose matches the palate, well, that's a home run. Cheers SLB!
A few years ago I toured Bluegrass Distillers in Lexington and among the information that they handed out was a Tasting Wheel by Distilled Living. The American Bourbon Association also has a tasting wheel on their website. Great show, love watching and comparing my experiences to yours, TonyB
Awesome vid, guys! Always learning here and appreciate all the great information. 'Strong Like Bull'...can't help but think of a big, burly wrestler back in the 70's who used that phrase. 😂 Keep up the good work! Cheers!!
Thanks guys! I have never seen you specifically cover the topic but for those of us who set our MWF clocks by the SLB video release I was able to pickup on most of this. My favorite is letting the sip breath for 15 to 20 minutes before you sip. I did this for the first time with a glass of 4 Roses Small Batch Select. I opened the bottle and poured a glass and began sipping. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. It was AWFUL. I was kicking myself for wasting 65.00. Then I watched one of your videos and Trenton mentioned that he poured the glasses about 15 minutes before filming started. I went back to my 4 Roses and Wow what a difference. I will say that it doesn’t work every time but it has never made it worse. Thank for all you guys do.
KURT!!! TRENTON!!! Very seldom do I take notes while watching a video. This is one!! Lots of great tips in here!!! The human palate is a fickle thing!!! CHEERS family!!
Many years ago I was fortunate enough to be introduced to single malts while in Scotland by someone who knew what they were doing, and was able to go to several distilleries with him, which was an amazing experience. I'll never forget smelling Highland Park at the distillery and having it remind me of the sea oats at Edisto Beach in South Carolina when I was a kid. My friend grinned at me and said that the sea oats were all around in the Orkneys. It was the beginning of my own whiskey journey.
This was an excellent educational video for a novice like me. I have always struggled with the ‘notes’ of a whiskey. I simply may not have the nose or the taste buds to discern some of the flavors. However, it is a journey that never ends. I’ll continue my tasting journey even if I never can quite taste or smell what others pick up. Great fun.
Very instructive video. It's funny how you can taste a bourbon and struggle to pick up anything but maybe vanilla or oak, and then when someone mentions another note they are getting you can go back in and look for that specific note and often times find it. I have a lot of respect for people who can truly find these notes on their own.
Great video guys! I have spent a lot of time trying to be good at this. I have just decided it's more enjoyable to decide right away if I like the juice or not, then focus on the primary note or overwhelming theme of the juice. Basically, identifying the most prominent quality overall (viscosity, finish, flavors, etc.), then I decide if I want to explore more. I have found that this tasting thing is actually a little harder to do in a social setting with music and conversation happening all around you as well.
I have been drinking whiskey and bourbons for about 5 years and it is hard for me sometimes to get different tasting notes and smelling notes other than alot of them really smell similar but can tell the difference on what ones I really enjoy.thanks for the advice, I enjoy your content, you guys do a great job cheers
Really good advice. I started with wine. There was a group of us during Covid who did zoom calls with the same wine. At first I couldn't find what others were. When I stopped trying to do that and started trusting my palate it all changed for me. There are two others in the group who have similar palates, not identical, and that reinforced my trust in my palate. I learned a lot about my own ability to smell and taste. I learned that things change as they open up with time in a glass. So when I moved on to bourbons I trusted my palate enough to accept what it was telling me. It helped that I took part in a tasting that included water and ice. That helped me understand how that relationship changes the whiskey for me. So now I trust my sense of smell and taste enough to understand what I enjoy. A month ago we gave an informal tasting to a friend who was new to bourbon. Same thing, helped him trust his palate and understand how water and ice change things. His palate is dramatically different from mine. That's OK.
I appreciate your nosing and tasting notes in your videos. A traumatic head injury severed my of olfactory nerve 22 years ago. Absolutely no sense of smell and my taste is diminished by about 25 percent. I can still taste a good bourbon or single malt Scotch. Just can’t enjoy the nose. Your videos help me appreciate the tastes I should be finding or tasting.
I roast my own coffee and I can pull flavors out after freshly roasting the beans, I’ll let it sit in the container for an hour or a day then I’ll pull more flavors. When I pull the shot, I get more. That’s why I get drawn in to smelling different drinks. Thank you for explaining this out, I haven’t been able to pull more than the heat of the alcohol unless I’m drinking a lower proof or a rye. You guys are awesome.
I was legit looking for a video like this last night with no luck on what I was looking for. Thanks for your information and advice. I only have two bottles and I will practice with them. Buffalo Trace for the start and Mr. Kurt’s recommendation with Rarebreed.
ADHD Whiskey and Bourbon Junkies have videos I found helpful too and all of them really help build on each other and give different approaches so it's not repetitive.
I learned a neat trick when tasting bourbon (or any other spirit). This is a bit tricky, but when you take a small sip, try to let it sit in your mouth while quickly inhaling a small amount of air through your mouth, without accidentally inhaling the bourbon. The inhaled air passing over the bourbon carries the vapors of the bourbon all up into your olfactory system and greatly intensifies the smell, taste, and overall experience. Also, it's worth noting that although you don't really ever see Kurt and Trenton do this, but adding a few drops of water to your whiskey can make a big difference in opening up the nose and flavor of the whiskey, especially for higher proof whiskeys. Doing side-by-side tastings can also help you pick out individual flavors in each whiskey more easily than just sipping on one whiskey alone, and it helps you determine which one you enjoy more.
I find the best way to notice and isolate notes in whiskey is to always have a standard to compare it to. Whenever I buy and try a new bourbon, I pour a glass of Jim Beam White to compare it to. I get almost nothing besides some dry peanut shells and acetone from Beam. It's so much easier to notice what glass #2 has when you have a glass #1 first that has none of it.
That's what it is!! Most of my life I've picked up a sort of Hairspray or Nail Polish Remover smell/taste ever since I was a kid. Smirnoff was a big one. I got into bourbon not long ago, started with Beam, had no point of reference so it was "just bourbon" to me. Now I have some Woodford Straight (not double oaked) and I'm sitting here taste testing the two of them, and I noticed an absence of the Hairspray smell, which your comment made me realize was Acetone. It's not totally eliminated, but it seems to be 80% replaced with a... caramelly creamy dark and dense sort of smell, compared to the Beam. Sure has more bite to it though, it's still hard for me to pick up on flavours when the bite is so strong.
You guys make it so enjoyable to watch and to learn. I don’t typically drink it straight so a video on how to mellow a shot would be nice. I know, those true tasters just gave me THAT LOOK.
Awesome content. It is all about enjoying bourbon and sharing experiences with family and friends. I drink all my bourbon over square or round ice. I have just ordered a Whiskey Aroma Kit from Bourbon Real Talk to try to pick up aromas from bourbon neat. 🥃
I like the instructions you give. I never pick out more than a couple the notes and I use to think - oh man that's bad that I can't. Then I came to just one thing that you said that I think is the best advice you said today: do you like it or not? Drink what you like. Thanks.
Good timing on this video. I've been trying a few bourbon, and they all seem to taste more or less the same. Scotch, on the other hand, can taste wildly different depending on so many things. I was beginning to think I was missing something with bourbon.
It is amazing what aromas and flavors whisky can deliver. I never thought of such things before I began drinking whiskey, and at one point I really suspected that whisky reviewers were making things up. But we really do smell and taste things that *to us* smell or taste like this or that. I frequently get honey, butter, caramel, and oak - among others, of course, but those are the frequent notes. 7:34 I habitually swirl the glass too. And I nose it (for me, that *is* a verb 🙂) along as I drink, both out of habit and because the nose evolves over time just as the taste does. 21:15 I get the most notes on the nose, fewer on the palate, and usually just one or two on the finish. This was a very good video. Finding basic stuff like this online is hard, so thanks. And for some Blatant Self-Promotion, my Whisky For Beginners channel exists to try to put basic information in one place for newbies. If anyone wants to head on over, you'll be welcome. 🙂
Kurt, you claim not to be a “professional” (“nor will we ever be”). However, by definition, you actually are. Technically you are getting paid for your opinion in this field, therefore you ARE a professional! Congratulations buddy!!! 😂
I enjoyed the show love to learn new methods or confirm old methods I have a Question have you ever been to Frankfort Kentucky Bourbon on the Banks Festival???
SLB Old saying Strong Like Bull Smart Like Buffalo Two guys, which is which Gotta leave it at that Lol Great video - and the fact that you two are NOT 'professionals' is what makes SLB so relatable to the rest of us amateurs. Some of the 'pros' who list 6, 7, 8, 9 tasting notes are either gifted or full of it.
I'm glad you guys are here. I don't think I would like the so-called "professional" evaluations. I would rather have regular people giving honest opinions about what they smell and taste.
I am amazed that anyone can pick out notes. Granted I am still in the early stages of experiencing bourbon. This video was a little helpful, and I will keep trying to pick out notes. All I know is when I sip I can tell if I liked it or not. I dont have a big budget so its going to take some time to try everything on my list. I think on the 1st it will be either an Old Forster (likely the 100 proof) or Wild Turkey 101.
I get the sweet candy over oak. But also Christmas notes, pine and spruce. Got a nose of dried apricot, but only on one inhalation and couldn't repeat it.
I have noticed that my preferences has changed over time. When I began, my sweet spot was 45-50 ABV. Now that I’ve been tasting at the 55-60 range. I have been finding the lower proofs less enjoyable, or at least notice that they taste ‘watered down’ and less complex. But then again, OGD 114 is one of my favorites, indicative of a less discerning palate. To me, OGD 114 is big boy/girl dr. Pepper, and just loving it right now.
Great video, I'm trying to get better a catching and naming the notes myself. I can pick out 'maybe' 2 when I'm by myself, if do help when you taste with other people. And also after you finish your pour smelling the glass after you can pick up notes. so dont go for that second pour to quick! lol
The one method you get correct IMO is the rolling of the Glen, but rolling it in your hand? Novice at best. The Glen shape is meant to roll on the counter with the appropriate amount of whiskey in the glass. Full circle, full “smelling”! And no spill!
About one year ago I started enjoying premium cigars. Every time i found new flavor note. What i know from that experience is that one must not be mistaken and think the flavor notes are exact flavors. It are more specific flavors that remind u of something. When there is a leather flavor, it does not taste like leather. We did not eat leather. Its a flavor that reminds u of leather, the smell of leather. What i found out, in my cigar journey, is that people who were mistaken by what flavor notes are, had problems finding them. That said, i just ordered a bottle of Buffalo Trace and a bottle of Four Roses SB as my first ever bottles and cant wait for this new journey. I am exited and wonder if i can immediately pick up similar notes i already found when smoking premium cigars. One can get the weirdest flavor notes but it depends on your own experience.
I’ve heard (from a few distillery tour guides) that you’re better able to identify taste profile/notes on the second sip/drink (meaning after the initial Kentucky Hug).
For wine drinkers, there are a lot of similarities. It's interesting to just now see the aeration techniques used on bourbons. I was always raised to roll the glass in my hand to help w/aeration and to 'warm up' the spirit.
this was great thank you i am new but really like what I see and hear have you all heard of Chicken Cock ot Wyoming was wondering if you had any thoughts about last of all is Whistle Pig thanks looking forward to my first live feed new Wednesday
SLB Classics 0:19 Happy to not talk about Kurt’s melons 1:32 apparently they aren’t professionals 3:55 Trenton takes it so literally😂 3:56 Trenton wins 1|0👃🎉 5:43 Apparently Kurt has a handicapped Schnoz 8:54 The candy notes return: grape laffy taffy 11:59 Kurt still doesn’t know what to do with his hands like Ricky Bobby 14:06 Trenton always has to complicate things 15:05 Trenton sometimes finds fun notes 🏀 17:44 Whiskey drinking is like golf, if you don’t get it it’s just frustrating 20:37 Throwback to the worse mic days 22:37 nice nod to finish
I find it interesting how 1) what I have eaten earlier as well as 2) what the weather conditions are impact my reaction to a pour. I tend to gravitate towards a just a handful of whiskeys - which should lead to some consistency - but I seem to react differently based on these two factors.
I'm with you on being a little handicap on the smelling department, I've worked in a chemical factory for 20 years. Still you can get some aromas, obviously taste is going to be more important to me than smell, but like everybody I'll vote with my wallet. So I'm all about a great palate less than the nose. When people tell you all taste is through the nose they don't know what they're talking about.
One note I tend to get but never hear about is a distinct cola on the nose. Like an RC or Coca Cola. It doesn't always transfer to the palate but it does quite frequently on ryes that I've tasted. It's very nostalgic mainly because I don't drink soda any more at all. So it comes from when I did drink lots of soda when I was younger. Classic Coke was always my favorite. Curious if anyone else gets that.
When I am about to do a bourbon tasting I recently learned to start with a familiar bourbon - WT 101 - in my case just to see where my palate is. I know WT 101 well and what it should taste like and if it's not right it may not be a good day for a tasting. I forged ahead with a 10 year ( ORVW 10, ER, HMcK 10 and Russell's 10) recently and was sorry I did and feel like I should do it again
The way I learned and recommend to people to is to start with smelling and write down notes than drink and write down notes then google a pro review and compare what you got. If they have something you dont, look and see if you can find it. Often you will find the word for a note you had but couldnt name.
