The wonders of whiskey

Last night I was out with friends at The Page (formerly Chances, which always sounded like a gay bar name to me) for continuing experiments in whiskey tasting. They had a whiskey menu, which is great because I never wear my glasses so I can't read the labels of the bottles behind the bar. Two of our selections they didn't actually have though- it seems they bought all the whiskey, made up the menu, then realized there wasn't enough bar shelf space to put them all. Oops.

First I tried Black Bush, a terrific Irish whiskey. It only has that Irish sweetness for a millisecond, then the flavor changes to how you'd imagine velvet to taste- like its drying out your tongue, followed by a powdered chocolate taste. Great stuff. I love flavors that come in waves.

I also had a Glenlivet 15 (I think) year old. Glenlivet is a standard whiskey sold in most bars, but I don't find it to be as interesting as others in the same age and price range. It doesn't seem to have much nose or tail (aftertaste). It's all on your pallet- a delicious, spicey-smoky taste to be sure, but I think I like my whiskeys with more bells and whistles. (I'm easily distracted by shiny objects too.)

I then tried a Dalmore 12 year. The peatiness is present in this Highland Scotch, but not obtrusive as it can be in some others, and disappears before the other fruitier flavors do. It has an almost a zesty quality, with the flavor jumping from your mouth up to your nose before smoothing out in the tail end. Nice.

The fun part about drinking whiskey is building a vocabulary by looking up the tasting notes online afterwards and seeing how wrong you were. I'll save that for another entry...