Tasting Whisky on YouTube

In the recent months we have made a small but significant change to our YouTube tasting videos. Now you can usually see a closed bottle standing on the casks.

In the past 10 years, however, we had almost always tasted Whisky from an already opened bottle.

Why did we change this? It is mainly about authenticity. If you have a bottle standing on a cask and taste a small, unlabelled miniature next to it, one or the other viewer might wonder whether this might be a fake sample. Or a sample of an acquaintance who wants to pull your leg and push something towards you. And to prevent this thought from arising in the first place, we open a fresh bottle every time.

In a way, that is quite bitter, because it is extremely expensive to open a new bottle for each tasting video. And of course you can't regularly enjoy such quantities of Whisky yourself. So we were glad that our circle of friends accepted these bottles against payment. But with the more expensive bottles this did not really work. The circle of friends is not so big that you can pass out all these bottles. And so we were and are happy every time when the manufacturers actively contribute with bottles. This includes very fresh, closed bottles, but also specially filled samples and bottles on loan, which we send back after the tasting. What’s important for us: We only accept bottles from the original sources.

But this juvenile tasting of a Whisky also has disadvantages, which have been mentioned in our social media channels. The first impression of a Whisky in the nose is very important. Because it immediately captures us and determines our further attitude. It's just like with humans: The human brain uses the first seven seconds of first contact to classify its counterpart. This happens subconsciously. After that, it takes a very long time to revise one's judgement about a person. It is the eternal conflict of fast and slow thinking, for the exploration of which Daniel Kahneman received his Nobel Prize. His book 'Fast thinking, slow thinking' is worth reading.

First contact is also very important with Whisky. But the real depths in the aroma and taste of a Whisky can only be perceived after a while and two or three sips. Unfortunately, we rarely have time for such an extensive tasting in front of the camera.

For several years now we have been shooting our videos for our website Whisky.com in English. And what did we taste? Of course the Whiskies we have already tasted before. And if you now taste the same Whisky again after 15 minutes, additional aromas appear and the perceived complexity of most Whiskies increases noticeably.

We now dared to shoot the German-language videos with bottles already opened. Unfortunately the ‘aha’ experience suffers a bit, but in return the expressiveness increases because we have already tasted the Whisky once before. In turn, this ‘aha’ experience of the first impression is now part of the tasting videos on Whisky.com.

In the end, here is the answer to the often asked question: Which bottles does Ben taste and which ones do I still taste?

The answer is more objective and logical than most people imagine. I have visited about 170 Whisky distilleries in my life, Ben about half of them. I rarely get to touch his knowledge of Japan, USA, Ireland, Canada and India. That is why Ben tastes most of the bottlings from these countries. Where there are overlaps, the person who was last on site and has the latest information tastes for the YouTube video.

Often you will also see Ben and me together in front of the camera. We always try to do this when a bottle is particularly important for our customers. It doesn't matter whether the bottle is new on the market or my video has been around for many years.

But at Whisky.com there are not only tasting videos. Via our website you will also find

Knowledge videos with detailed explanations

Funny videos and discussions in our blog

Distillery tours with interviews of distillery managers and master blenders

We wish you much fun and variety with our Whisky videos!