The Glenlivet Sensology Experience

I was lucky enough that I got aproached by Patrick from a Swiss whisky club called Whiskybox who asked me if I wanted to join him and a few other guys from said club to visit Pernod Ricard Switzerland for their Sensology Experience. The Glenlivet Sensology Experience is a programm by Pernod Ricard with the intention to show people how our sense of taste is influenced by our other senses. Whisky Box are the first people outside of the Pernod Ricard group who were invited to this experience so it was very cool of Patrick to ask if I liked to join them

After arriving at the Pernod Ricard HQ in Wallisellen we were greeted with a cocktail by Brand Ambassador Deborah Stewart.
 The cocktail, a mix of Glenlivet Founder's Reserve, Blood Orange Licqueur and Ginger Ale was really nice and I think the Founders Reserve which I don't really like as a sipper works quite well in cocktails.

Then the actual experience started. The first step was that we had to taste some sugar with our noses closed. After taking the nose clips off we realized that it was actually a mix of sugar and cinnamon which none of us recognized at first. The next step was to drink two different liquids. One was red and the other one was yellow. Most of us expected that the red one was going to taste like strawberries and the yellow one like lemon but actually they were both the same - apple juice.
The third step was to listen to two different styles of music while drinking some whisky and to determine which one suited the whisky better. Between those steps Deborah gave us a lot of information about the Glenlivet and Pernod Ricard in general. The last and most important step was a blind tasting. Everyone had 4 glasses in front of them and we received 6 cards that all showed different expressions from the Glenlivet portfolio and some tasting notes.
Our goal was to determine all 4 whiskies in front of us. Deborah also told us that no one has ever achieved to name all 4 drams correctly. Since we were the first ones outside of Pernod Ricard that did this test which means that those people were sales persons and the likes we didn't expect to recognize too many. I don't want to brag right now but I was the only one who recognized all of them :) It was the Glenlivet Nadurra Oloroso, the 18 years old, the Founder's Reserve and the Nadurra First Fill.
Because I was the first person to ever score 100% Deborah rewarded me with a Glenlivet Quaich which was really cool.

It was a very nice evening and I want to thank Patrick, the guys from Whisky Box and Deborah for everything. The Sensology Experience was a cool experience to show how our sense of taste depends on other senses.

Cheers, U

Why I Will Start Rating Whisky

It's been a long time since I last published a post on this blog but now I'm back and there will be some changes. Over the course of the last few months I was thinking a lot about the state of whisky today and also the state of whisky blogging and there are a few things that are bothering me to a certain extent. Now note that this will not be a rant on what is wrong with whisky nowadays but there are a few points that I would like to address.

Before I start explaining you what is bothering me in the current world of whisky and especially blogging I will have to explain to you what why 2016 was an amazing year for me from a whisky point of view. It all started in January of 2016 when I discovered a Swiss online forum for whisky where likeminded people can discuss make bottle shares and chat over their shared interest which is of course the water of life. I immediately registered and like it is custom in said forum I opened a thread to say hello to everyone and to introduce myself. As a result I got a lot of reactions from people who introduced themselves to me and welcomed me to the forum. One of them even went to visit me in the whisky shop around a week afterwards which was really cool. Through the whiskyforum I learnt that a lot of those people regularly attend a tasting that takes place every 2 months. I then decided to attend this tasting too to get to know more people from the forum (and of course also because I love to go to whisky tastings).