Cologne Whisky Connoisseurs

Sad but true ... internet's first internet TV channel dedicated to whisky only has been closed down!

In an email Rob Draper explained this step with the "lack of widespread support at this point". Frankly, that's no big surprise for me! In the last few month's SinglemaltTV was pretty quiet, no new videos, no new blog posts...

I will miss all the high quality videos with Charles MacLean, Martine Nouet and all the others.

Bye-bye singelmaltTV

Well, I have to admit that CologneWhiskyConnoisseurs' WhiskyBlog has been pretty quiet in the last few months. But that doesn't mean it's dead... Not at all!
Two very relaxing and interesting May weeks in scotland lie behind me with dozens of mushtons, washbacks, stills, spirit safes and drams but also salmon fishing in river Tay and trout fishing in small highland loughs and rivers. It was a very relaxing time with my father.
And you might think, 'why the heck he didn't write about that. He should have lots and lots to write about...'
Well that might be right ... but I think what I have to tell is nothing that's realy new to you. There are thousands of reports of that kind out there on the internets.

So I'm thinking a lot about this little blog and what to do with it. Look, I don't want to be the thousandst blogger who writes only about tasting notes and whisky news. I think all that stories are told by others before and others do that much better than me. I don't want to bother you with the same things you read, hear and see on other sides.
I want to do something new, but what can I do that other's haven't done yet? First Marc with his Whiskycast and later Ralfy with his Vlog 'Whisky Reviews' did something realy new.

I think a step in the right direction was my three part essay about how we taste and nose whisky. Maybe I'll do more of these things in the future. But there must be more something unexplored in the whisky scenes.

What do you think, what's missing? I'll be happy hearing from you!

That's all for today.

How do we learn flavors and aromas or more generally spoken how do we remember smells? Well, imagine! You’re out somewhere in the streets of a city and suddenly a smell hits your nose and you nearly immediately bear a certain experience, place or feeling in mind that has totally nothing to do with the situation you are actually in right now. I’m pretty sure everybody has made such an experience. But what has this to do with tasting and nosing of whisky, you might think. Well more than you expect, I guess...

Click to read more ...

Firstly let’s look at how we taste and smell Whisky… When we are talking about taste and smell of food, wine and even spirits we’re actually describing impressions of four sensory systems, the haptic system, the trigeminal sensory system, the gustatory system and last but not least the olfactory system. At this point you might think, ‘What the heck…, why are you bothering me with such scientific terms? I just wanna enjoy my dram!’ But wait, all this isn’t rocket science at all and helps us to understand how and why we taste and scent the way we do ...

Click to read more ...

As a reader of my blog you might know that I do tasting notes on a more or less regular bases. My tasting notes tend to be rather long. Well that may be a result of my anxious attempts ;-) to be as powerfull eloquent as those great Whisky writers such as Charlie MacLean, Jim Murray and last but no least Michael Jackson (R.I.P).  Some of you might agree with me and eventually relate to my thoughts. And I’m sure some could not follow me at all. Guess what, same here with tasting notes by others. 

When I recently read a comment by someone big in the whisky (blogging) world claiming that the tasting notes of someone else are extremely accurate, I have to admit I was a little bit irritated and decided to look somewhat deeper into the mysteries of olfaction and taste.

Why it's so hard to describe flavors, aromas and taste of Whisky accurately? Why can tasting notes be so different from each other? And what do we exactly mean when we use terms like ‘smell’, ‘nose’, ‘taste’, ‘mouthfeel’ or ‘aftertaste’? I’m not a specialist in that at all but in the upcoming two blog posts I’ll try to summarize what I’ve read about these topics mostly on wikipedia.