Whisky

The grain sets the base. Barley gives Scotch and Irish malts their cereal and orchard fruit character, corn makes bourbon rounder and sweeter, and rye brings pepper with a dry finish. The cask does the rest. New charred oak, which American law requires for bourbon, gives up vanilla and coconut fast, while a refill sherry or bourbon barrel in Scotland works slowly and lets the spirit show through. Still shape counts as well, since tall stills tend to produce a lighter spirit than short squat ones. Climate is the last variable: warm air drives spirit into the wood far harder than cool air does.

The number on the bottle is the age of the youngest whisky in it, not an average. A twelve year old blend may contain much older stock, but nothing younger than twelve. Whisky stops maturing once it leaves the cask, so a bottle sitting in a cupboard for a decade is still the age printed on the label. Some bottlings carry no number at all, which is a blending decision rather than proof of youth.

A single malt is malted barley from one distillery, usually married from several casks. A blend combines malt whisky with lighter grain whisky, often from several distilleries. A blended malt uses malts from more than one distillery and no grain whisky. Single grain means grain whisky from one distillery rather than one grain. Single cask means one barrel, bottled on its own, so the next batch will taste slightly different. Cask strength means the whisky went into the bottle without being reduced with water, which is why those bottles read higher on the label. None of these terms is a quality ranking.

Start with something unpeated and mid priced rather than the smokiest or oldest thing on the shelf. Once you know whether you lean sweet or dry, the rest of the shelf makes sense.

A few drops of water open up the aroma in a cask strength whisky, and there is no rule against it. Ice mutes aroma, so chill the glass instead if you want cold without dilution.

Spirits do not spoil the way wine does, and a sealed bottle keeps for years if it stands upright, out of sunlight and away from heat. Once opened, the whisky slowly oxidises. A bottle with plenty of air above the liquid will shift over a year or two, usually losing aroma before it loses anything else. Store it standing up, since a high strength spirit sitting against the cork degrades it.