A friend sets two glasses on the table. One whiskey is a familiar bottle. The other was difficult to find, expensive, and apparently worth the trouble.
Before you have smelled either one, the second glass already has a story.
Stories are part of whiskey’s appeal. For a comparison, though, it can be interesting to let the glasses introduce themselves first. A few small choices about how you pour, taste, and talk can make the differences easier to explore. You can follow the written exercise at the end without tasting.
What Would You Like To Find Out?
Start with an ordinary question: “Which of these would I choose to drink neat?”
For that question, pour the whiskeys at their bottled strengths. A 60% whiskey and a 40% whiskey offer different experiences, and that difference belongs in your choice.
You could also ask, “How do their flavors compare at the same alcohol strength?” In that case, you would prepare them at a chosen common strength before tasting. We will look at a simple water calculation below.
Pick the question first. It gives the rest of the session a direction, and makes your final note easier to understand: “I preferred this one neat” or “I found the fruit easier to pick out when we compared them at the same strength.”
Set The Table
Use two clean, odor-free glasses of the same shape, and give them equal small pours. Choose somewhere comfortable, with little background odor. A scented candle may be lovely at dinner; it is less helpful when you are trying to find a delicate aroma.
Have drinking water, a place to discard samples, and something to write on nearby. Keep the preparation and resting time similar for both glasses.
If someone can help, ask them to conceal the bottles and label the glasses with unrelated three-digit codes. They can keep the key until you have finished your notes. Agree on what you will know beforehand: “two bourbons” offers a different starting point from “two whiskeys.”
Give both samples a chance to be first. In a group, about half the tasters can begin with one glass and half with the other. Allow a comfortable pause between samples. If you are practicing alone, reverse the order on another occasion and compare your notes afterward.
Matching the setup lets more of your attention go toward what is in the glass. Manska discusses expectation and order in his chapter on bias; Burton explores the appeal of concealing a bottle’s identity in wine tasting. Manska — chapter 35, “Mastering Bias,” displayed ebook p. 253; Burton — chapter 4, “Why blind taste wine?”.
A Quiet Minute Before The Conversation
Give everyone time to write before sharing impressions. Once someone says “chocolate,” it is remarkably tempting to go looking for chocolate.
Make a first pass through each glass: appearance, aroma, then tastes, texture, and finish if you choose to sip. Bring the glass toward your nose gradually and use brief, comfortable sniffs. A small sip is enough to explore; spit or discard as you prefer, and pause if you feel irritation or fatigue.
Use the words that fit. “Warm” tells us about a sensation. “Intensely fruity” tells us about flavor. A drying or puckering feeling describes texture; bitterness describes taste. Separating these makes it much easier to explain why one whiskey feels different from another.
Then compare notes. Where did your descriptions overlap? Did one person notice the fruit at the start while another focused on the finish? Return to the glasses with those questions in mind.
What Happens With A Little Water?
Water gives you another version of the same whiskey to explore. The simplest useful setup is to begin with two equal pours, leave one unchanged, and add a measured amount of water to the other. Now you have something to return to.
Suppose each starting pour contains 10 mL of whiskey at 50% ABV. Leave the first alone. Add 2.5 mL of water to the second, bringing it to about 40% ABV. Those figures are a classroom approximation: alcohol and water do not combine in perfectly additive volumes.
Let both glasses rest for the same interval, then compare them. What happens to the aroma, warmth, texture, and finish? Which version do you enjoy more?
For a closer comparison, serve equal amounts from the two prepared versions into matching glasses. Record the starting strength, how much whiskey and water you used, and how long you let them rest. A small measuring tool is more useful than “a splash” if you want to repeat the experience.
Edmonsond’s discussion of water encourages returning to earlier stages of a comparison. Keeping the original pour beside you makes that easy. Edmonsond — water discussion beginning “the use of water,” supplied transcript.
Leave Yourself A Useful Record
Write down enough to recreate the session: your question, the sample codes, glass and pour sizes, serving order, what you knew about the samples, and any water additions or resting times. Add your impressions, a reason for your preference, and anything you would like to revisit.
If you poured the samples yourself, include that too. Concealed bottles reduce some expectations, but a small tasting still reflects its participants, conditions, and the whiskeys selected; it cannot isolate the effect of age, grain, or cask type by itself.
When the bottles are revealed, add their identities beside your original notes. An unexpected result is often the best part. Perhaps the whiskey you usually overlook was the one you kept returning to.
Write A Flight Brief Before You Pour
A flight becomes easier to follow when the host can finish this sentence: “By the end, we want to describe…”
For two samples, try a small planning brief:
- People and question: Who is joining, and what comparison would help them? For example, “We want to describe how the finishes of these two bourbons differ.”
- Conditions to match: Choose the same glasses, equal small pours, a shared resting interval and a plan for serving order. Record any strength differences.
- What else differs: Note known differences in age, producer, cask treatment or other production details. Leave unknowns marked unknown.
- What to bring back: Ask each person for one similarity, one contrast and one preference with a reason, written before discussion.
You can build the brief from bottle information and imagined records without drinking. If your question is about age, a younger bottle beside an older one gives you a comparison of those two products. Other production differences may also explain what you notice, so save “age caused this” for evidence that can separate those possibilities.
Salazar's hosting questions inspired this brief; the controls and inference boundary follow the Academy method. Salazar, The Art of Tasting Whiskey (2026), chapter 7, PDF sheets 89–90 / displayed ebook pages 98–99; critical literature note.
Try Redesigning This Tasting
A host pours a 60% whiskey into a large glass and a 40% whiskey into a smaller one. Everyone tastes the stronger whiskey first. The host announces that it is rare, says “notice the chocolate,” and asks which bottle people would buy to drink neat.
How would you change the setup while keeping that question?
A comparison can stay relaxed while giving each glass a fair hearing. Once the setup feels natural, you have more room to enjoy the differences.
Separate Preparation From Presentation
Prepare the complete versions first, then pour equal serving volumes into matching glasses. If one version contains added water, an equal initial whiskey volume does not produce an equal final serving. Record both the recipe and the amount actually served.
For a pair, distribute A-first and B-first orders across tasters. For three coded servings, vary the duplicate’s position as well. Keep pour-to-assessment intervals and pauses comparable, record deviations, and collect notes before revealing the key. Balancing order helps distribute an order effect; it does not make lingering sensations disappear.
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