3 Tasting Hacks for Whisky Ambassadors
As a whisky ambassador you serve as the face and voice of a whisky brand, connecting it to consumers, trade professionals, and the wider spirits community. Your role combines education, storytelling, and sales-driven initiatives to build brand awareness, loyalty, and appreciation. A crucial skill for any whisky ambassador is therefore the ability to engage with an audience, bringing the brand to life through experiential journeys.
We are passionate advocates for enhancing how people experience flavour too. Having spent decades wearing different coloured ambassador hats, we have dedicated ourselves to enhancing how everyone interacts with flavour. The knowledge is out there, it just needs passing on. Ambassadors are often the gatekeepers to customer experience. They have the power to change flavour appreciation, hence, by training the ambassadors we hope to start ripples that become a win-win for everyone.
Today we want to share 3 tasting hacks for whisky ambassadors that help to create more meaningful brand experiences. These hacks are fun practices that can be integrated within whisky tastings and are designed to aid consumers in understanding their senses on a deeper level. Therefore, consumers can understand your brand on a deeper level too. These tasting hacks teach valuable skills that anyone can take everywhere with them. Let’s begin
Pinch the Nose and Take a Sip
One of the biggest misconceptions throughout the whisky industry is – what is flavour? Which seems bizarre given that the nucleus of the whisky industry is flavour. But flavour is a fantastically fuzzy affair which requires diving deep into the science to find the answers. Ask 10 people to explain flavour and you will receive 10 different answers. The interchangeability of terms such as taste, palate, flavour, finish, and mouthfeel only create more fog in the mists of confusion. Giving one’s guests a fundamental understanding of flavour is therefore one of the most powerful tools within a whisky ambassador’s kit.
In the simplest terms, flavour is the brain’s perception based on inputs from retronasal olfaction, taste, and mouthfeel. The brain shapes all of these separate inputs into a single perception. Because of this, it can be tricky to understand the different components of flavour individually. It’s not like we can experience the mouthfeel of whisky without simultaneously tasting it also. But we can separate retronasal olfaction from taste and mouthfeel.
Retronasal olfaction is our sense of smell, but not from odours in the air around us, instead the odours travel internally from the mouth to the olfactory epithelium behind the nose when we take a sip of something. When we describe flavour (taste) the majority of what we are describing is in fact aroma, hence this simple exercise proves the point in an engaging way, and helps people to break down flavour into some of its component parts. It’s a lot of fun too!
Simply ask your guests to pinch their noses whilst taking a sip of whisky. Keeping the nose pinched explore what they can ‘taste’. It will likely be predominantly burning sensations but ask if the sensations are like chilli peppers, ginger, black pepper, or even hot coals. There are many nuances to mouth burn. They may also experience bitterness and mouthfeel such as oiliness, fattiness, dry tannins, or even cooling menthol. Upon releasing the nose and breathing out, the full flavour or ‘taste’ will magically appear like a flood of delight as the nose becomes engaged. Which neatly brings us onto the next hack.
Breathe Out Through the Nose
This may be something that people do instinctively, but once we understand the science it’s rather powerful. Research has shown that air flows differently through the nasal passages depending on whether we you are inhaling a smell directly through the nostrils (orthonasal smelling) or experiencing aromas from the back of the mouth (retronasal smelling) as one breathes out, as we have touched on already.
When we inhale through the nostrils, air flows in a smooth path through the nasal cavity due to the narrower diameter of the nostrils compared to the larger choana (the passage connecting the nose and throat). This is because there is less pressure in the nasal cavity due to its size when compared to the nostrils which are relatively narrow. So when you sniff a dram, the airborne aroma molecules (congeners) pass across the olfactory receptors (the sensory tissue responsible for detecting smells) relatively untroubled.
Conversely, when air is exhaled through the nose, it flows in a turbulent pattern. This turbulence is caused by the larger choana, which creates a "backflow" behind the smaller nostrils as the pressure builds. The air cannot get out as easily as it came in. Basically, the air circulates within the nasal cavity before being exhaled through the nostrils.
This turbulent retronasal airflow spreads volatile aroma compounds more broadly across the olfactory epithelium. This wider distribution may enhance the perception of complex aromas once a whisky has been swirled in the mouth or even swallowed. So, encouraging guests to purposefully breathe out through the nose after sipping can enhance aroma detection. It’s a key part of the whisky tasting process that is often overlooked.
Perch One’s Nose Above The Glass
The final hack is a practical one when tasting whisky, or more precisely nosing a dram (orthonasal olfaction). The natural temptation is to stick one’s honker into the glass and take a good whiff. As you will know, especially in the case of cask strength whiskies, the experience can be overpowering. The default remedy is of course, add some water. But there is another way.
Rather than perching one’s protrusion in the glass, encourage your guests to perch it just above the glass, at the upper rim with the glass tilted at an angle. The headspace is the area of aromatic vapour above the liquid in the glass. Some volatile molecules are heavier than others. By sniffing above the glass rather than in it, the brunt of the alcohols are bypassed which enables the lighter, more fragrant and fruity aromas to be detected more easily.
Give it a try for yourself. It’s a remarkably simple yet effective way for your guests to engage with whisky. It allows a different experience of the dram before reducing with water, and adds a further element of fun that your guests will take away from the tasting.
Learn More Tasting Hacks for Whisky Ambassadors
Adding such simple tricks to your tastings creates a powerful impact. Guests will engage with your brand on a more meaningful level and experience flavours in a new light. This will lead to a stronger connection with your brand and enhanced brand loyalty. In addition, such hacks become a form of social currency. Your guests will be delighted to share their newfound skills with family, friends, and total strangers. It creates a ripple effect that improves whisky appreciation on the whole, and your brand can be the instigator.
These are just a few of the hacks that we teach on our flavour training course for whisky ambassadors, but there are many more based on the insights from the psychology, cognitive neurology, and the general wizardry of flavour. Find out more by taking a look here. And for anyone who isn’t into whisky…
We also host specialist courses for wine ambassadors, gin ambassadors, and rum ambassadors too. Simply get in touch for more details. While the fundamentals of experiencing flavour remain the same, the tasting process differs so we fine tune the content to meet the specific needs of different categories. So join us on our crusade, because together we can enhance the consumer experience and make the world a better place through flavour education.