So where to begin? As I mentioned in my prior post, I was very impressed with the selection of single malt whiskies available at Vine & Table. And I remembered that one of the employees (Dennis, though I unfortunately don't recall his surname) was once referred to by another employee as the "whisky guy". So on Saturday, between the errands that I had to run for my wife (new jeans for my son, a case for my daughter's Kindle Fire, toilet paper...), I managed to stop in at Vine & Table and, lucky for me, Dennis was working. So I told him that I was ready for Whisky 101.
Without further ado, he grabbed a glass and a bottle from the shelves and poured me a little bit of … something (and unfortunately, I managed to accidentally delete the photo that I took of the bottle; I’ll report back after my next visit to the store so that I can identify what it was). A few things surprised me right away. First, the glass that Dennis gave me wasn't a big hulking sort of glass (tumbler?) that I’ve come to associate with most liquors. I was expecting this:
But the glass that Dennis set before me looked more like this:
Now why was he serving me with this 
seemingly dainty glass that looked less like the big glasses that I’d generally seen served in bars and restaurants and more like a diminutive wine glass? Hmm. New questions to ponder.
Also, I was expecting the glass to be filled with a fairly deep amber or brown liquid. But instead, it was almost (though not quite) clear. When I looked at it from more of an angle, I realized that it was faintly colored, but not the deep hue that I’d anticipated.
But before I could spend any more time really thinking about the glassware or the color, I did what I’d really set out to do: I took a sip.
Fire!
The first word that came to mind to describe the whisky that Dennis poured for me was hot. Not hot, like just off the oven hot, but hot, like wow, there must be a lot of alcohol in that! I was, at best, an unpleasant surprise. Frankly, all I got was the heat of the alcohol and it appeared to mask any flavor at all. Another sip or two and things started to mellow a bit, but I can’t say that I was off to a great start. Maybe it’s that my palate has adjusted to the much lower alcohol content of wine (though I will acknowledge that I really like some of the big bold 15%+ wines), but I was disappointed that I was having a hard time identifying much flavor around the heat of the alcohol.
When Dennis asked me what I thought, I answered honestly. After all, I’m not going to learn what I do and don’t like — and he’s not going to get to learn my palate — if I’m not honest. (And I guess I should note that while I was sipping that whisky, Dennis was giving me a real Whisky 101 lesson, telling me about the manufacturing process, a bit about the regions, a little about some of the terms, and so on.)
Anyway, Dennis took another bottle off his shelf and poured it for me. Though my photo was (again) accidentally deleted, I do recall what this particular bottle was: Highland Park 12-year-old. With not a little trepidation, I took a sip.
Oh.
The difference between this drink and the first was night and day. First, it had the darker hue that I’d been expecting. And it had flavor. Lots of flavor. Good flavor. Plus, though I could certainly tell that there was alcohol, it didn’t overwhelm any sense of taste and flavor; rather, the whisky was much, much smoother. It was more of a pleasure to swirl around in my mouth rather than the fire from the first drink. Though I guess that I should also admit that given the choice between Highland Park or the a glass of the Alta Vista Atemporal 2007 that was sitting on the counter, I’d most likely choose the wine; that said, if I were sitting down with my book, a sip or two (or five) of Scotch might just be OK.
Unfortunately, at this point in the proceedings, things took a bit of a left turn. Two other customers came in to talk to Dennis, both of whom were much more knowledgeable about single malt whisky. They were particularly interested in hearing from Dennis about the merits (or lack thereof) of chill filtering. I tried to follow the conversation, and I certainly understood the technical aspects of the discussion, but when it came to comparing a whisky from one region to another or one process to another and especially one particular bottle to another, I really didn’t know what they were talking about or have a touchstone for the conversation. It’s hard to understand a comparison of stone ground mustard and Dijon mustard if all you've ever tried is a generic yellow mustard. And I certainly couldn’t blame Dennis for spending time with these other customers; after all, his job is to sell, and he had a much better chance of selling to those other customers (who, for all I know, are regular customers who buy quite a bit). I should also give Dennis kudos for not ignoring or forsaking me as the discussion progressed. But my Whisky 101 quickly became their Whisky 301.
But at least I now had something to go on, something to help me think about whether this was an area that I really did want to explore. I concluded yes (obviously), but I also realized that I still didn’t know enough to walk back to the shelves and make a selection. But as Target and its rolls of toilet paper began to beckon and I made ready to leave, I noticed a book on Dennis’ desk. It was some kind of guide to single malt whisky. I asked him if I could take a look at the book and he handed it to me. I began to thumb the pages and quickly realized that I now knew my next step. So, with a quick goodbye, I headed to my local bookstore (via Target’s toilet paper aisle, of course).
The book that Dennis had let me see was the 5th edition of Michael Jackson’s Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch. Dennis told me that he was pretty sure that there was a new edition. And he explained that Jackson was the best respected authority on single malt whisky. Sure enough, I found (and purchased) the 6th edition (published in 2010).
Michael Jackson’s Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch appealed to me because it had a section on the history of Scotch, a discussion of the terminology and some of the processes, and then tasting notes (and photos) of hundreds and hundreds of bottles. And, both from what Dennis had told me and from what I gleaned from scanning that book and several others, Jackson appears to have been one of — if not the — authority on single malt whisky.
I also scanned the other books on the shelf and picked another book that seemed to have a much more in depth discussion on the process of making whisky (including a section on American whiskey). It too included tasting notes for a huge number of bottles, thus giving me immediate access to at least two professional reviews to help me get started.
When I got home later that afternoon (with Kindle case, jeans, and toilet paper), I went down into my basement, settled into my reading chair (an absurdly comfortable chaise that I’ve had since law school) and started to just skim through the two books. I wasn’t so much reading either of them as I was picking this page or that page to read just based on what caught my attention.
One of the first things that I did was look up that Highland Park 12-year-old that Dennis had poured for me (he had explained that the age on a bottle meant that the youngest the whisky could be was the age indicated). I was curious to know what the professionals thought of that particular whisky. Was it held in high regard or was it generic junk? I’d presumed that Dennis had tried to impress me with something decent, but who knows? I didn’t like the first bottle he poured for me. And I’ve certainly had enough wine retailers try to pass of as a “great wine” something just this side of swill. Well, it turns out that Dennis didn’t steer me wrong. Both books regarded that Highland Park bottle as being a great all around bottle. Just on a whim, I even took a look at author Barry Eisler’s web page and found that bottle included in his “highly subjective” top ten (no. 3 but in no particular order…).
I would probably have gone to the store on Sunday to buy a bottle … but this is Indiana and you can’t buy booze in Indiana on a Sunday (though you can buy it in a restaurant or at a stadium; if you want to know more about Indiana’s insane, arcane, and archaic liquor laws, please check out Indiana’s Arcane and Archaic Alcohol Laws published at my other blog). Well, that and the fact that we were all headed downtown to the NFL Experience and Super Bowl Village.
Of course, that also meant that I had more time on Sunday evening to read more about this and that… I wanted to at least understand some of what I was reading on a bottle’s label so that when I looked at the shelves it wasn’t as if the labels were written in Latin. I remembered when I’d first starting prowling the aisles at wine stores, wondering what the hell a Chateauneuf-du-Pape was or what Crianza, Meritage, and Premier Cru meant. When I’d looked at the shelves and seen terms like Nonchill or Cask Strength I had the same sense of disorientation. So, by taking my time to read a bit more, I felt that I was at least giving myself the ability to begin to understand what I looking at and, soon enough, drinking.
But here I need to say something that may be sacrilegious to the single malt devotees who (I hope) are reading this blog: So far, I really don’t like Michael Jackson’s writing style. Sure, any individual sentence may be well written, but I find that, even within a given paragraph, let alone a longer passage or section, he tends to jump around, sometimes as if he’s writing in a stream of consciousness. And, though he provides some definitions early on, he still seems to expect that his reader knows quite a few other terms that, at least to someone who has grown up in a suburban American environment, are Greek (so to speak). Sorry, but while I have a general idea what peat is, I don’t have much experience with stepping through it, let alone digging it up, burning it, and smelling the aroma it gives off. I looked, but my suburban subdivision seems wholly devoid of any peat bogs. That all being said, I will acknowledge that the 6th edition of his book was published after Jackson’s death and was revised by several other authors, so perhaps blame should not be laid entirely on his step (grave?). Furthermore, my criticism of his general writing style does not, so far, extend to his actual descriptions of various whiskies. When I read his tasting notes, I do get some sense of what the whisky might be like (though it remains to be seen if I really smell and taste what he and others do).
So come Monday evening, on my way home I stopped first at Costco (another errand for the spouse…). I've become very familiar with Costco’s wine section (who knew that Costco was the largest wine retailer in the US?) but I’d never spent much time looking at the other liquors that they carried. I took note of the single malt whiskies that they had so that I could try to read about them later. And then I went back to Vine & Table. I had decided to buy a bottle of that Highland Park 12-year-old that Dennis had poured for me. If he thought that was a good starting point and both Jackson, Roskrow (author of the other book), and Eisler thought highly of the bottle and it wasn’t obnoxiously expensive, then it would provide a good starting point (yes, I could have started cheaper, but I was actually concerned that starting too cheap might put me off rather than draw me in). I also noticed that the glasses that Dennis had used were available for sale (Riedel Vinum single malt whisky), and at a not too terribly expensive price. So with bottle and glasses in hand, I headed for home.
Now if I can just find a time to, you know, open the bottle and drink. But that will be another day. And as soon as I’ve had that chance … you will be the first to know. Of course, I think that I want to do some more reading too…
Update February 13, 2012 (formatting and typo corrections).
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