LOL - it seems women can taste whiskey better than men can

ToneControl

Philly_Q said:

Why LOL?

as the story says, many men assume women can't appreciate the quality differences, hence ironic

CaseOfAce

Absolutely love the stuff. Never that bothered till my 30s and then i acquired a taste for it. I've had some outstanding single malts over the years - I love speyside and islay's equally. You don't have to go crazy spending wise but like guitars it does help sometimes. I find the Irish stuff a bit sweet for me but the Japanese blends can be intense and there's some fantastic bourbons out there.

ToneControl

I'm very fussy about food and drink, definitely much prefer the pricier rums, gins, wines, beers, tequilas, Mezcals, coffee, tea

However, I find it very hard to enjoy any Scottish whiskey, just too peat smoky for me.
Irish or Bourbon are fine.

Philly_Q

ToneControl said:

Philly_Q said:

Why LOL?

as the story says, many men assume women can't appreciate the quality differences, hence ironic

OK.  I'd seen the story earlier and it didn't strike me as funny.  Wry smile rather than LOL, perhaps?  I wasn't aware that men (mistakenly) ridiculing women's inability to appreciate whisky was a big thing.  It sounds more like a "golf club" mentality than anything particularly related to whisky.

McSwaggerty

ToneControl said:

I'm very fussy about food and drink, definitely much prefer the pricier rums, gins, wines, beers, tequilas, Mezcals, coffee, tea

However, I find it very hard to enjoy any Scottish whiskey, just too peat smoky for me.
Irish or Bourbon are fine.

Not all Scottish Malt Whisky is Peaty or Smokey....mainly just Islay malts and maybe some Island Malts.
Highland, Speyside and Lowland Whiskys are not Peaty at all.
Reckon you need to try harder !!
 

menamestom

ToneControl said:

I'm very fussy about food and drink, definitely much prefer the pricier rums, gins, wines, beers, tequilas, Mezcals, coffee, tea

However, I find it very hard to enjoy any Scottish whiskey, just too peat smoky for me.
Irish or Bourbon are fine.

They are not all peated.  Speyside as a region is probably the least peated, but you can specifically search for non-peated whisky. The west coast Isles, Islay, Skye, Mull etc seems particularily peated.  I used to build telecom sites out there, there is a lot of peat around.  Constructing in it is as bad as drinking it!  

Talisker is a great example of heavily peated, tasts like a bonfire to me.

Glenfiddich 18 is a nice smooth, non-peated Whiskey.

Philly_Q

menamestom said:

Talisker is a great example of heavily peated, tasts like a bonfire to me.

I visited the Talisker distillery a few years ago, but we were too late for the tour, just had a look around the shop.  There was some extremely expensive whisky on display!

Blueingreen

munckee said:

I only like bourbon really, which I imagine is considered the whisky equivalent of lambrini to the officianados.

Nothing wrong with a good bourbon.  I'm a long time Scotch drinker but I drink it less often nowadays and when I do occasionally have a whisky I often find I prefer bourbon, partly I think because being a bit "out of practice" I prefer a smoother, sweeter drink.

Having said that I did finish the last couple of glasses of a bottle of Ardbeg that's been lying around the house for a while last night. Yum.

Alterlifeson

CaseOfAce said:

Absolutely love the stuff. Never that bothered till my 30s and then i acquired a taste for it. I've had some outstanding single malts over the years - I love speyside and islay's equally. You don't have to go crazy spending wise but like guitars it does help sometimes. I find the Irish stuff a bit sweet for me but the Japanese blends can be intense and there's some fantastic bourbons out there.

Same story here, hated it until I was in my thirty's. I think most people ignore the water aspect, it really helps temper the overwhelming taste that puts most people off. It makes the tasting notes that people rave about come out much more strongly. 

Then again, I think a lot of the descriptions people get come as part of what they should be tasting. If someone reads 'Chocolate, stone fruits, followed by a nutty finish' then that's what they'll get. 

DuploLicks

A measure of non-peaty whisky with a cube or two of ice is very nice. I avoid Laphroig, Talisker & the like as they’re just too much

thecolourbox

I can heartily recommend whisky stones, freeze them and use them instead of ice cubes so as not to dilute your drink unnecessarily

BillDL

I don't know whether or not my tastes have changed, but over the past 10 years or so when I've occasionally treated myself to a good single malt I have been noticing that they seem to be getting smokier and smokier tasting.  I love single malts and I love Islay and some of the other West Coast malts that have always had a slightly smoky flavour, but the last few I bought were just too smoky and I really didn't enjoy them because of this.  I'm sure I've also noticed a smoky hint creeping into some of the malts that previously had no hint of smokiness.  I don't know if they have been changing to try and please the "supertasters" that like the smoky "notes" or if it just me, but I would like to buy a single malt whisky knowing that it's going to have a nice clean, pure non-smoky taste, but I now have no idea what one to buy.

robgilmo

Im a Jameson man myself, nothing quite like a nice glass of Jameson on a cold evening, or a warm evening, or during the day, anytime really, you just cant beat a nice glass of Irish Whiskey, well , maybe a nice glass of Irish Poitin,real poitin, not the bottled garbage labeled as poitin. Beside an open fire in some tucked away shebeen, heaven.

jonnyburgo

I used to like Jameson, nice and smooth, easy to drink.

skullfunkerry

Philly_Q said:

ToneControl said:

Philly_Q said:

Why LOL?

as the story says, many men assume women can't appreciate the quality differences, hence ironic

OK.  I'd seen the story earlier and it didn't strike me as funny.  Wry smile rather than LOL, perhaps?  I wasn't aware that men (mistakenly) ridiculing women's inability to appreciate whisky was a big thing.  It sounds more like a "golf club" mentality than anything particularly related to whisky.

My first thought when I read the story was "Ooh, there'll be a lot of men that don't like this", which definitely got a wry smile out of me. I've read so many stories of gatekeeping ("Metallica t-shirt? Name 5 of their songs!", "Girls can't play Dungeons & Dragons", etc. - or my favourite one, Nita Strauss* wearing an Alice Cooper t-shirt and being told "You're too young to like Alice Cooper"). It's always** men who do this, so it's easy to imagine a man telling a woman that she doesn't know what she's talking about with whiskey, and that she'd prefer a fruity drink instead***.

*for those that don't know, Nita Strauss plays guitar with Alice Cooper.

**okay, maybe not always, but certainly the vast majority of the incidents I've read about have been men. See also: mansplaining.

***(c) Al Murray's pub landlord.

skullfunkerry

Philly_Q said:

menamestom said:

Talisker is a great example of heavily peated, tasts like a bonfire to me.

I visited the Talisker distillery a few years ago, but we were too late for the tour, just had a look around the shop.  There was some extremely expensive whisky on display!

At Edinburgh airport in the duty free shop they had a £14,000 bottle of whisky. I was chatting to one of the assistants and she told me they sell one of them on average every month or so!

Sporky

I stayed in a lovely hotel in Devon a few years ago - they had one that was top end of four figures per shot (something like one of three bottles ever made, saved by a Yeti from an airplane that crashed in a frozen lake at the top of an active volcano 400 years ago etc - some embellishment there). Got bought by two sorts, the barman reckoned; genuine connoisseur types, who'd have just one, and already-drunk showoffs in groups. 

westford

I much prefer a Speyside to the peaty/smoky whiskies. Cardhu Gold Reserve is probably my favourite but have a 12 yr old Glenlivet on the go just now. We’ve got a bottle of Welsh stuff (Aber Falls) in the cupboard we’ve yet to try.

Bellycaster

I've tried a few Whiskies and my favourite remains, Glenfiddich. Glenlivet is close too. The nicest blended Whisky I've had is Dewar's White Label 12 year old. I need to try Chivas Regal and Glenmorangie next.

GoFish

Chivas Regal is a scotch and will taste different to the single malts you have mentioned. If you like it, the whole world of scotch opens up to you ... same again for Irish. Bourbon is American and sweetend. Rye is Canadian and less so.

All will get you pissed.