Appreciating Whisky: The Connoisseur's Guide to Nosing, Tasting, and Enjoying Scotch

As with fine wines, there is a social cachet in being able to "appreciate" a good Scotch. But how exactly do you learn this skill? This illustrated book offers the reader detailed, structured tuition on how to develop his or her palate for whisky. Readers are taken on a detailed tour of how whisky is produced, what each of its constituents and each of the stages of its manufacture bring to the final product. With this grounding, they are then introduced to the various chemical processes at work during distillation and maturation that give each whisky its distinct characteristics. Using specific popular whiskies which readers are encouraged to have to hand as they work through the book, they are taught how to recognise what it is they are tasting and smelling, and how to describe this in the language of the experts. Armed with this knowledge, readers should ultimately be able to develop their own informed impressions of the whisky they drink, rather than receive them second-hand from books.