I’ve had the opportunity to try many more Whiskies over my Christmas break and with my return to work I wanted to reflect on some epiphanies I’d had regarding Whisky and this journey I’m on to better understand it.
Reality check: There are globally over a thousand active distilleries making Whisky of various volumes, all with their own unique mash bills, grains, yeasts, fermentation times, stills, double/triple distillation, barrel woods, barrel ex-contents, maturation durations and final blenders with their own palettes that, whilst it’s not an infinite number of combinations…there are more combinations than I could reasonably try even if I tried one glass of each day between now and the day I die. So…accept you’ll never be able to try them all and focus in on what you like the most, and try to understand why you like that type, style, profile, whatever you want to call it, to better inform future decisions of what you’ll buy and what you won’t.
When I was initially trying and buying bottles of the ones I liked and watched the space on the shelf getting lower, I had to pause and ponder. At what point do you limit how many you have? There’s an episode coming up where I’ll delve into safe drinking quantities or at least, health-department guidelines/recommendations but it’s clear that a single drink per day is probably “safe” enough (whatever that means) and for a standard bottle volume that would mean you should get just over 3 weeks from a bottle…call it a month. Therefore what’s the point of having more than about 12 bottles since 12 is an easy number as there’s 12 months in a year?
I’ve found people online with Whisky collections that are in the dozens, hundreds and a few with over a thousand! That’s never going to be me. Where do you store it all? It’s not possible to drink it all without being ill or dying so what’s the point unless you’re truly collecting which means you can’t drink or enjoy it? I’ve decided to enforce a bottle quantity limit for myself with some variety in styles on the shelf. It makes sense to me to have a nice easy-sipping one, perhaps a nice really strong, cask-strength one, perhaps a lightly and heavily peated one and so on, so you could pick based on your mood or meal it’s being paired with.
The problem with rotating through bottles unevenly, is that a half-empty bottle will oxidise and particularly Peated whiskies, if you leave them with large amounts of head-space in the bottle, without a wine-preserver gas or something in them, they will slowly lose their flavour and become flat between the 6-12 month mark. If you choose this approach then be aware of that at least. A few of the Whiskies I have on my shelf have been there for a year and if they’re nicer, rarer, or more expensive, then I can see that becoming multiple years.
One of the challenges I have personally is that no-one in my family, close or extended, likes Whisky. I’ve found that discussing the dram in hand with others that share your interest and passion for Whisky is far, faaar more enjoyable than when you’re on your own…and I don’t mean alone physically, but that too. Enjoying a nice Scotch when surrounded by people all drinking beer or wine takes away some of the enjoyment you’d otherwise get from being surrounded by other Whisky lovers.
This is the hard truth dot point. The downside of enjoying alcohol, whatever its form, is that can be habit forming. Having several drinks, every single day, can lead to dependence and permanent damage to your body, most notably the liver. This is something many people gloss-over or try not to look at, but it’s the truth. There are also many people in the world that draw the hardest of lines in the sand, saying that even a single drop of alcohol is bad and you should never drink at all. I’ve seen forum posts and Whisky podcasters, Whisky-tubers and the like, be labelled “Alcoholics” and that they “clearly have a problem,” when that’s not generally true.
The litmus test is our ability to choose. Take it from someone that’s had a weight problem in the past, our ability to say “no” to ourselves is the key. I like the idea of “Dry-July” or pick a month that suits, but you can pick a day, a week, a month, or hell even a year if you like…where you have no alcohol. If you can do this, you’re fine. If you can’t do this…you may have a problem.
I’ve started asking people to “…always remember to drink responsibly, in moderation and where and when appropriate…” in every episode as I want to explore and enjoy Whisky, but I don’t want myself or others to forget that without moderation and your ability to choose, it’s a slippery slope that you don’t want to be on.
I’ve now tasted over 120 Whiskies at the time of writing this and I’ve got a really good idea of what I like and what I don’t like. I’ve therefore made the decision that I will not buy a bottle of anything that I’ve ranked as a Quaity of 1 or a 2 again. I’d prefer to save up for a nicer drink, take my time with it and savour every drop. Nose it. Sip it. Don’t rush it. Enjoy it. Quality NOT quantity is my ultimate goal. If I wanted to get smashed, like I’m in my 20s again, I wouldn’t be sipping nice Whisky. That’s for sure.
Cheers and enjoy 2025.