I tend to receive more and more messages on a daily basis asking me all sort of whisky-related questions. I therefore realised quite a lot of you were interested in learning some “insider” whisky geek tricks, so here are 3 of them!

Parafilm FTW – You’ve recently bought this highly-collectible/crazy expensive bottle at auctions and you want to keep it for a special occasion? Don’t neglect long-term evaporation! What many whisky geeks would do in this case is to protect the seal with an additional layer. I personally recommend using Parafilm because it makes you feel like a mad scientist… And also because it works… And it’s easily available.

Rub Your Hands – if you’ve ever attended a whisky festival, you may have come accross those weirdos dipping a finger into their dram, rubbing their hands together in some sort of autistic frenzy and then smell their hands like lunatics. It’s actually a pretty common technique in the magical world of whisky geeks to assess the character of a distillate, you should try it next time!

Coffee Beans in Your Pocket – Yeap, your read that right… once again, if you’re attending a whisky festival or tasting, there may be a point when you’ve smelled and tasted so many drams your nose and taste buds are saturated and you can only smell this overwhelming peat smoke. And here’s where your coffee beans come to help! Indeed, coffee has this amazing particularity to reset your palate and nose, so when you start feeling a saturation, crunch one or two beans and keep on tasting! (that’s also why some perfumeries display some pots containing coffee beans on their shelves… )

 

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Cover Pic: Serious Eats