The taste evaluation of whisky serves to systematically record the flavours, structure and overall impression of a whisky and make them comparable with each other. The sensory impressions - odour, taste, mouthfeel and aftertaste - are initially considered separately and then combined to form an overall assessment. A structured tasting usually follows fixed criteria in order to document subjective perceptions in a comprehensible manner. Tools such as flavour wheels, rating scales or scoring systems help to precisely describe individual impressions. In addition to sensory perception, external factors such as alcohol strength, temperature and glass shape also influence the tasting result. The following sections explain the structure of a professional whisky tasting, the scoring systems used and the classification of individual flavour components. This provides a sound overview of how whiskies can be assessed more objectively and how sensory impressions can be recorded in a comprehensible manner.
New: since 2025 Whisky.de offers the tasting book designed for you!
What makes a good Whisky?
The question of what makes a good whisky is often asked. What should you look for when choosing a whisky? Our expert and whisky enthusiast Horst Lüning prefers natural whiskies without colouring and chill-filtering, but he also enjoys chill-filtered and coloured whiskies such as Lagavulin.
He basically recommends whiskies from small independent distilleries as there are fewer and fewer of them, but there are also excellent bottlings from distilleries belonging to large groups. The choice of whisky depends on many factors, such as age, flavour, smokiness, sherry cask ageing and cask strength bottling - depending on the situation!
This shows that many things make up a whisky. We are happy to support you in your search with our video tastings and detailed flavour descriptions. In our article Whisky recommendation we go into this topic in more detail.
And now for the tip:
Horst Lüning is particularly fond of Lagavulin Distillers Edition. This whisky has a wonderful distillery character, is extremely smoky and has been matured in an excellent Pedro Ximenez sherry cask.
Video by Horst Lüning from 2013 on the topic "What makes good whisky?"
Video by Horst Lüning on the subject of flavour evaluation from 2013.
Evaluation by experts
The first port of call is often experts, or as they like to be called, the "whisky popes". One of the best known is Michael Jackson, a journalist who was the first to taste whisky and record his experiences in a book ("Malt Whisky Companion"), which paved the way for subsequent books. Today, Jim Murray is the best known of the experts with his work "Whisky Bible". In it, he has written down his personal assessments of more than 4,500 whiskies. Each one is rated with points according to various criteria.
Customer ratings
Customers can give their rating and opinion on review sites and in product reviews. At Whisky.de this is possible in the form of text, stars and parameters. In order to obtain an average of the opinions, we offer users of our website the opportunity to leave their rating in the database. Each bottle can be rated with one to five stars, a flavour description for aroma, taste and finish with predefined symbols and text comments. An average value is calculated from this, which does not have any rating peaks.
Tips from like-minded people
People influence each other! Whether we get a tip to try a whisky or not, it will influence our evaluation of a whisky.
Here's a nice story!
A group of friends attended a tasting at the Bowmore distillery. At the end, they were disappointed with the small amount of whisky they had received. In revenge, they started spreading false and bad opinions and reviews. The people who read this on the forums smelled their Bowmore bottles again and suddenly found these flavours too. It's in our evolution as social beings. If a group has eaten something and one person finds something bad about it, they will warn the others to ensure the survival of the group. This is not only the case with food, but in many areas of life.
So make up your own mind!
Full-bodied Whisky
A full-bodied taste experience is characterised by complex aromas and diverse flavours. A full-bodied whisky can be malty, fruity, nutty, spicy or smoky. More and more connoisseurs want the most intense flavours possible in their whisky. Connoisseurs have long since stopped drinking their whisky with ice or even cola. They want the full, intense flavour.
A full-bodied whisky is characterised by the character of the distillery, which is determined by the shape and number of stills. The length of the distilling process is also decisive. Maturation in the cask is very decisive for the development of flavour. The wood, the duration and the type of maturation play a major role here. Another criterion for flavour development is the smoke in the whisky.
How do you find a full-bodied Whisky?
Use our flavour descriptions as a guide. The term "full-bodied" gives you a wide range of flavours! Read the description and watch the tasting videos.
None of this says anything about whether a whisky meets your personal taste! But you can pay attention to the following points:
- the shape of the stills (you can find pictures in the whisky database at Whisky.de)
- Alcohol strength
Ultimately, the search for new flavours is exactly what drives the whisky connoisseur on his journey through the variety of distilleries and their whiskies. No two whiskies taste the same, but each whisky is a small work of art created by nature and the distilleries' whisky makers.
Determination of flavours
If you listen to whisky experts for a while, you will hear flavour descriptions such as 'a light almond tone paired with peat water' or 'slightly salty with seaweed aromas'. The whisky novice wonders how such flavours can even be tasted in a single malt whisky? And why is it almonds and not marzipan?
Humans have a very keen sense of smell, which is a thousand times stronger than our sense of taste. The taste buds on the tongue can only distinguish between five main flavours: Sour, salty, sweet and bitter. We taste sweet at the front of the tongue and bitter at the back. Bitter is a protective mechanism that warns us of poisonous substances. Sour shows us unripe fruit and salty is important for our water balance. In the last century, 'umami' was discovered as a flavour. It stands for the flavour of proteins, such as meat. Our tongue contains more than 30 different umami sensors.
Most flavour sensations are produced in the nose. The meaning of an odour depends on the context in which we perceive it.
Where do the flavours come from?
The fruitiness of the whisky comes from the yeasts, which produce a variety of very fruity esters during fermentation. The caramel sweetness comes from the wood of the cask, which is heated during production to caramelise the wood sugars. The smokiness is brought into a malt during the drying of the malt. The oiliness of some malts is determined during distillation. With increasing distillation time and higher temperatures, the heavier oils also find their way into the finished product.
Aids for whisky flavour evaluation: how to taste systematically and precisely
Tasting whisky is more than just tasting - it is a combination of sensory perception, experience and structure. With the right tools, it is much easier to recognise aromas, classify taste impressions and make tasting results comparable. Whether for orientation during nosing, for training your own sense of flavour or for long-term documentation of your tasting notes: The following tools will help you to specifically improve your whisky taste evaluation and sharpen your personal flavour memory.
Below, we present three tried-and-tested tools that have proved particularly effective in practice.
Tasticons - recognising flavour at a glance
With our Tasticons, we offer you a quick and intuitive way to identify the flavour of a whisky at a glance. The specially developed flavour icons were introduced in 2018 and have since helped thousands of customers to find their way around the range.
Each icon stands for a specific flavour or characteristic: the cask symbol indicates a particular cask maturation or subsequent maturation, fruit symbols stand for fruity flavour profiles and the pagoda roof signals a smoky whisky in typical Islay style.
The tasticons in the shop are particularly practical: When searching for whisky, you can filter specifically according to flavour profiles and thus discover suitable bottlings more quickly - ideal for beginners as well as experienced connoisseurs in search of new worlds of flavour.
Nosing Wheel
The diverse aromas in whisky are often depicted in a circular diagram - the so-called nosing wheel. The aim of this tool is to capture aroma and flavour impressions in as structured and comprehensible a way as possible and to sharpen sensory perception.
As whisky offers far more flavour nuances than the five basic flavours of sour, salty, sweet, bitter and umami, numerous different nosing wheel variants have been created over the course of time. Each distillery and each blending company often uses its own system, which is tailored to the respective style and flavour focus.
The typical structure of a nosing wheel is from the outside in: From a coarse group of flavours such as "fruity" or "spicy", the chart gradually leads to ever finer nuances of flavour. In this way, connoisseurs learn to name flavours more specifically, compare them with each other and better classify their own taste.
The tasting book from Whisky.de
Since 2025, we have been offering a personalised tool for your systematic whisky tasting with the Whisky.de tasting book. Record your impressions of the aroma (nosing), flavour (taste), finish and overall impression in a structured way - just like with professional tasting notes.
Regular entries allow you to recognise patterns, favourite flavours and preferred whisky styles more quickly. This allows you to develop a clear profile of your personal taste preferences step by step. At the same time, the tasting book serves as a practical reference book for past tastings - ideal for comparative tastings or the targeted selection of new bottlings.
An additional added value: the tasting book contains compact whisky knowledge - from the basics of sensory analysis to helpful tasting tips.
Conclusion
The taste evaluation of whisky follows clear sensory criteria such as nose, taste, finish and overall impression, which help to systematically perceive and assess flavours. Through conscious tasting, different styles, cask finishes and degrees of maturity can be better categorised and compared with each other. Discover whiskies with diverse aroma profiles and compare your favourites on the basis of well-founded tasting aspects. Discover the Whisky.de tasting book now and document your tastings professionally!
To comment, you must be logged in