Whiskey Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Whiskey | Price Points | Epicurious

I'm Heather green and I'm a whisky expert well fantastic I have two Scotch whiskies in front of me and looking at them from the top in a decanter I can't quite tell the difference in color but let's get to it Scotch whisky is a type of whiskey whiskey being defined as a distilled spirit made with three simple ingredients water yeast and grain the magic of whiskey is the fact that we can create this gorgeous cornucopia of flavors from these three ingredients depending on where it comes from one of the things that make scotch whiskey Scotch whisky that it is aged in Scotland it must be aged for a minimum of three years on Scottish soil just looking at this right away we have a nice gold color this is a Glen Karin glass and Glen Karen glasses are something that I like to use when I'm professionally nosing or tasting you see this bulbous shape at the bottom this is the way to condense flavors so that I can really get at the aromatics and a whisky I'm gonna say flat-out that this is a very very beautiful whisky it has a lot of finesse to it there's some orange blossom slight vanilla and my favorite favorite element is a little bit of must enos that I get in a warehouse where scotch whiskey is aged what really separates a single malt scotch which I believe this one to be from any other kind of whiskey's in the world is the use of 100% malted barley so if you see the word single on a single malt scotch single means it comes from one single distillery it doesn't mean anything else now let's move on to B I don't know what to expect here I can see right away there is no difference in color one of the things about Scotland that is tricky is that they are allowed to use coloring while I evaluate color in Scotch whisky and consider it it's not always just purely gonna be based on the type of wood it's been aged in which of course will contribute to the color I don't know whether one of these has used caramel coloring or not my guess is that the inexpensive whiskey probably used caramel coloring to make me feel as if I was drinking something very aged I'm gonna come right out and say it this is a blended whiskey and the reason why I know that is because I'm getting a slight whisper of smoke and Pete blended whiskey producers basically take elements of different single malt scotch distilleries blending them together and in this case I believe they used a tiny bit of smoke and peach aisle and a little bit of that character in the whiskey along with the Vanilla's along with some of the creaminess and sugars I got out of a nice whiskey I am tasting a let's see how that goes before I taste actually I just want to tell you one thing you don't have to be too dorky about it you don't have to do that Kentucky - sorry Kentuckians you don't have to be like breathing in and do all this weird stuff because one that's not how you're really gonna drink whiskey realistically and two I think it just looks a little weird that is a gorgeous whiskey not only did it demonstrate beautiful aromatics of that core enjoy some and that butterscotch but the finish which we often talk about with the whiskey this was really warming and smooth I got a lot of additional beautiful flavors on what we call the retro nasal olfaction which is when you breathe out and the aromatics pass back through those receptors it's a bridge of your nose and it doesn't really trigger too much of my trigeminal nerve which are pain receptors so sometimes that can be a good thing right so we like spankings or cinnamon or spicy wings and likewise we can like a little bit of that in our whisky this however was sublime it was rich to me this is sign of a really fabulously made Scotch whisky let's take a taste of B ah this is so different this one is very thin it disappears very quickly it doesn't last that long and sometimes you want that in a whiskey it's actually fine you know maybe it's before dinner whiskey is an occasion after all unless you're like me and you have it for breakfast one of the ways that distillers can get flavor out of their whisky really tweak the flavor is the type of stool that they use single malt scotch distillers and I believe this to be a single malt scotch they use pot stills so those are those big giant onion copper stills the blended whiskey I type of still that they use called a column still developed in the late 1800s and that allowed distillers to continuously distill 24/7 without that batch distillation overhead of cleaning and starting up and firing up the stills so I believe this is also a column distillation so I'm excited I got a reveal which one I think is the expensive whiskey I believe a is the expensive whiskey this is the whiskey dot someone would pay a premium for I'm very excited about this one hundred and sixty-five dollars a bottle and it shows I felt like I could sit with this for a long time and that is the sign of a wonderful single malt scotch and with the blend this is perfect we roll out of bed and you're like I need a drink with my oatmeal this is the jam Hey hello rye whiskey one of my favorite types of whiskey I would call it the American underdog I will taste it and nose it in a beautiful old-fashioned tumbler I love using these for actually most of my whiskey's I love the look I love the feel of these I throw whiskey in these glasses put ice on it and just enjoy rye whiskey is different than bourbon in that rye must be made with 51% rye as its grain as opposed to bourbon which is made with 51% corn you can use other kinds of grains in that 49% but as long as this 51 percent ride aged in new oak cask we can call it a rye whiskey before prohibition would have been the most popular whiskey enjoyed in the United States when the first immigrants came over from different parts of the world they would have tried growing rye before growing anything else now one of the things about American whiskeys is that wonderful big robust loud in-your-face flavor that comes from those new oak casks which deliver an influx of flavor they hustle right up to your nose they come out they hug you and they say I'm American whisky there's a slight bit of spice and kick to a rye whiskey let's see if I can get some of those elements out of this whiskey good news everybody I get those notes this whiskey really demonstrates some of that grassy herbaceous white pepper quality that I want to smell and arrive what I'm finding a lot on the shelves these days is that they're kind of pun intended blending together the smell of rye and bourbon and all these whiskies that are jumping on the market it's hard to tell the difference amongst them I don't get an incredible a lot of complexity in this but it's giving me what I want and all right moving on to me now if color is an indicator of price this whiskey of course looks very dark very aged I'm gonna assume that it's been in the cask a lot longer and if it's in the cask longer it's gonna cost a little more we don't know for sure the color differential is tremendous here these rise will not be colored with caramel I'm looking at this color of this beautiful whiskey a nice dark rich color I'm guessing that it's over two years old I get the elements of the herbaceous note that white pepper note but because it's been aged for a while in wood it's not as much as I got out of this whiskey now I'm guessing that a is much younger so what we're getting are some of the notes of the wood that are I don't want to say masking but silencing maybe quieting though those ride or basis notes right now I'd say I like them both equally on the nose I like this for the richness and I do like a because it's really just very obviously a rye whiskey a I really really get the grain on this you know the longer a whiskey sits in wood the more distant you become in terms of the aromatics to the actual original green a good distiller will retain the character of the green and use the wood in combination to create complexity so that you can taste it all what I like about this is the wood is not overpowering this rye whiskey moving on to be obviously you can see the darker color here which I know this to be aged longer in wood does that age mean that this is a better whiskey or a better ride much bigger mouthfeel more luxurious its velvety which I love about this whiskey but for a ride drinker I would say I have to search for the properties of ride that I didn't have to search for an egg but what's interesting is that I believe this one's probably the more expensive whiskey because it's been aged for so much longer and I can see that from the wood color I can taste that I can get that from the viscosity the mouthfeel it's very velvety very luxurious rye whiskey I believe that whiskey B is the more expensive option ha not only is this one more expensive this is a $400 rye whiskey incredible this whiskey obviously rare we're getting up to a rare vintage 10 year old Frye they're harder to come by I'd go for this this is this is perfectly fine for me I'm a cheap date I this is great you just put this on the rocks and I am good to go okay we have Irish whiskey's here one of my favorite styles of whiskey what makes Irish whiskey traditionally so wonderful is that it's a lighter it's a fragrant it tends to be a more approachable whiskey there's a nice finesse to them they tends to be floral a lot of times triple distilled so the more you distill the more of the heavy congeners and molecules are you're you're getting out of that spirit and and refining what that whiskey smells and tastes like so looking at this color I don't see anything stand out it's a nice golden hue probably not super aged I get some lily of the valley guard and springtime feel to this green grass mixing with those beautiful Vanilla's that you get out of wood so I want to say that this whiskey's aged and maybe a couple of different kinds of wood there's not as much of a hard definition of Irish whiskeys you know of course it must be aged in Ireland created in Ireland but there is many different kinds of Irish whiskeys as there are American and Scotch whiskies whisky B I'm curious I don't really see a difference in color between these two whiskies whiskey B has a lot of the same qualities as whiskey a that same springtime feel very approachable easy whiskey the difference with me is that I have to dig in a little bit deeper to get out it doesn't waft at me the way a stood they may come from the same distillery now this isn't unusual in Ireland there are large distilleries that are making many of your favorite brands out of that distillery they're gonna create a pot still whiskey or a blended whiskey or a grain whiskey this one is like a floral fruit basket feels like something I want to drink today it is the springtime whiskey a that is a yummy whiskey does that sound like a whiskey expert well it does today it's almost like confectioner's sugar mixed with flowers a little bit honey and then some richness it's like nectar of the gods it's golden beautiful little nugget from heaven okay let's go to B I kind of want to stick on this one because I really I really love this whiskey I want it to be the cheap one I don't think this but I don't know maybe it is it's not bad it's not bad actually I have to say it's offering a lot more on the taste than it did on the nose and this surprises me some overlapping flavors with a there was that kind of confectioner's sugar ii kind of thing but I would say it didn't have the complexity for tip and whiskey nothing fancy but this one had a sexiness to it that I would drink over and over again I'm going to guess that a is the more expensive whiskey and if it isn't I will buy cases of this because I I think it's great I'm sure my cases have been anyways 104 35 oh man so if you're looking for a fabulous Irish whiskey something as sublime and beautiful as this look for a pot still whiskey I think you'll come pretty close to finding something that's beautiful okay we've got bourbon here and I can tell immediately that this one is darker than this one this might be a little bit older bourbon is I like to think of as the heart and soul of America's great whiskey it is made with at least 51% corn that right there is your biggest differentiating factor between bourbon and other kinds of American spirits American whiskeys stand out amongst the rest for its big vibrant robust nutty flavors you know what it is right away and that's because American whiskey must be aged in brand-new oak casks a lot of people like to think of these new casks as like the first dip of a teabag into hot water tons of flavor get in there very very quickly and we tend to drink our Bourbons at a younger age than you would an aged aged Scotch which can be 30 40 50 years old in some cases that whiskey a right away I get orange peel some citrus which I love to have in an American bourbon I almost even get some cedar and pine like some fresh wood and the something tropical in here something a little pineapple II that puzzles me actually some of those tropical notes that I'm smelling and some of the fruitiness probably developed during distillation in combination with some of the vanillas I'm getting from the wood and that complexity lets me know that this is a well distilled spirit so you're a map or B as I said I could see already before I even poured these once darker than the other bourbon Maker's do not use coloring in their whisky so this is a little darker but not so much where I would definitively say that's an older whiskey totally different I love that I love that these are so different there are three ingredients water yeast and grain when we talk about a perfumed whiskey this is perfume this is rose carnation almost I feel like I could you know bathe in this so let me move on to the taste before I even tasted I want to say as it's been sitting here I'm getting some of the deeper caramels and butterscotch notes out of this starting to kind of open up warm a little bit so again that leads me to think this might be the older whiskey I'm not sure though that's very beautiful if you had you know one of those candied oranges that's what I get on the back palate it's very warming which I like in an American whiskey I want it to to to make noise the viscosity of it is not as thick and rich as I thought it would be maybe like a eight to ten-year-old whiskey I'm guessing let me taste B that is a nice classic American bourbon this has got toasted marshmallow the caramel it doesn't ask too much of me it doesn't have this incredibly long finish the viscosity isn't as rich as say a very old aged Scotch but it still delivers a really nice flavor it coats my palate my guess is these are Kentucky Bourbon the majority of whiskey that you see on the shelves will come from Kentucky because of those complexity of aromatics I'm going to say both of these whiskies are least two years old my guess is this one is probably the older whiskey because of that strange tropical notes this pine needle each thing in there I'm gonna gasp that whiskey a is the more expensive whiskey oh yes I like that the reason why I chose a is the more expensive whiskey is because it was just unusual and that's what I really thought was compelling about a and would justify its practice and don't be afraid to go to a bar order to and do exactly what I'm doing and see what your palate says Japanese whiskey let's dig right into this it's a beautiful style of whiskey from none other than Japan but what a lot of people are surprised about is that the Japanese have been making whiskey for close to a hundred years now the defining factor of what makes a Japanese whiskey a Japanese whiskey is really a philosophy to the approach of making it so while there's these hard rules of what can be a scotch and what can be a bourbon what defines Japanese whiskey is really the way the whiskey maker interacts with the stills the grains and the whole process that creates that flavor it can be summed up in something called continuous refinement if there was a change to be made they change it they'd slowly slowly tweak that whiskey time and time again until they got something refined and beautiful I had one distiller tell me if the whiskey you taste now tastes the same in ten years then I've failed so if I were to look at this Japanese whiskey obviously it's very light in color I expect that also to relay on the nose and let's find out this is an extremely extremely light whiskey and light meaning that I don't get an incredible amount of flavor a little bit of lemon and I do find that in a lot of the big Japanese whiskey makers Yamazaki in particular or one of the big distilleries off and get a little bit of a lemon note on their whiskey's moving on to whiskey be from Japan you can see it's a little bit darker so just comparing color in a glass they're becoming more similar when you compare apples to apples but already from here I have not even put this to my nose yet and I can smell this whiskey it's a lush fruit basket for a lack of a better word this is lovely if you could imagine a pair dipped in honey it's got a little bit of vanilla some sugars in it it's just absolutely gorgeous on the nose so let's taste this taste an awful lot like scotch very light very easy very approachable I'm assuming this is a young whiskey because I don't get a lot of bouquet coming off of that but the texture of it's very creamy I think Japan is really known for creating this complexity that kind of makes you think twice about the whiskey we move on to this one this is B ah what a surprise this whiskey is amazing it smells soft and Orchard like and a lot of bouquet but on the back and after I swallowed right back here there's a real dry kick to it there's like a pop of tannins on the back end which lets me know that this has been aged over time get some of that wood property I love that in a whiskey that's my favorite thing both of these whiskies demonstrate something which I call true complexity which is that the nose is making you feel like it's gonna move down one path and then you taste it and you're like whoa there's something different in there that I really didn't expect and both of these whiskies do that because of that tannic backend I know that this is aged I can see the collar as aged this is the older whiskey and therefore the more expensive whiskey so for the reveal 45 and 200 that is a very expensive whiskey this whiskey is fabulous definitely worth that $200 when you compare it against many other whiskies of the world we've tasted a lot of whiskeys today I've talked about olfaction mouthfeel viscosity age price points but it's an experience and it's an occasion and I don't think there's anything wrong with you picking up a whisky and saying I love it or I don't like it Cheers

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 2,832,704

Rating: 4.788178 out of 5

Keywords: cheap vs expensive, price points, whiskey, whiskey expert, whiskies, expensive whiskey, cheap whiskey, cheap whiskies, expensive whiskies, whiskey test, whiskey tasting, whiskey taste, whiskey making process, whiskey taste test, how to make whiskey, taste test, whiskey reviews, whiskey comparison, whiskey review, whiskey testing, whiskey price, epicurious, cooking, recipes, cheap vs expensive bourbon, cheap vs expensive scotch, cheap vs expensive whiskey, bourbon

Id: gIg1gAy4lVg

Length: 20min 40sec (1240 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Qurutin]

I enjoy this series so much. The explanation of reasoning behind the guesses is great, and that it's generally not snobbery over the cheaper product but they often tell what it's good for and occasionally prefer the cheaper one, even when they know it's a cheaper one.

[u/stiffy420]

How is her brain working with all that whiskey drinking?

edit: oh, that sounded really condescending. she surely knows what she's talking about and i really respect that.

[u/ballboye30]

Does anyone else get the feeling she’s half cut while presenting this?

[u/bunny_on_it]

We like spankings

[u/9x6equals42]

She was fantastic, favourite epicurious expert so far!

[u/lordGwillen]

Got to enjoy a private tasting with Heather and my job. She’s so awesome and incredibly smart and talented. I went in not even liking whiskey all that much but came to appreciate it at was even starting to pick up on the flavors and notes she was getting.

[u/legojohn]

Heeeeeey, it's Tina Fey's sister!

I have no idea who she is, but I had fun watching this. I went to a distillery south of Inverness and it was fun to visit. I did another distillery south of Edinburgh but I don't remember much from it. I had fun tasting a bunch of the different types.

Do European distilleries like the American bourbons?

[u/DrGorilla04]

If you enjoyed this, I'd like to plug a similar kind of story that a friend of mine wrote for Atlanta Magazine a while back tasting Trader Joe's wines. It's always been one of my favorite pieces that he wrote. :)

[u/ItsAConspiracy]

Now I want to know what whiskies they were.