WHISKY SENSPLORATION

The rough with the smooth

SMWS Tasting Panel chair Kami Newton set out to boldly go where no other whisky tasting has gone before – into a world wrapped purely in texture

PHOTOS: MIKE WILKINSON

Marshmallows (and a fine Peated flavour profile Society dram) are a prerequisite for any true and proper campfire. The urge to harpoon the squidgy treat with a fresh twig and toast it over the flames is truly irresistible. Toasting marshmallows creates a masterpiece of duality – crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside. But what does this have to do with whisky?

The point is that texture makes flavour more exciting and is an essential constituent of flavour. This is especially true for whisky. Consider its mouth-coating viscosity. Its fizzy tingle. Or its silky mouthfeel. Taking these away would be like eating crème brûlée without its crusted canopy of crystallised delight. Flavoursome, yet lacking its ‘je ne sais quoi’.

Although what we interpret as flavour is for the most part aroma, we often describe whisky in terms of its textures. Viscous, creamy, chewy, mouth-watering, soft and harsh are all common terms. However, we can distil the narrative down to just two words that everyone understands – rough and smooth. Two words, of course, that are unequivocally textures.

If textures are so critical, why do we still taste whisky from glasses that are devoted to funnelling aroma molecules to the nose? What would happen if we transformed the modest Society copita into a textural wonderland? Most importantly, could our interpretation be altered simply by manipulating textures in the hand?

ABOVE: Katia and Roy get a feel for a tasting with a difference

Using textures to enhance flavour is nothing new. In the 1930s, an Italian Futurist, F T Marinetti, encouraged his dinner guests to hold a textured cube in one hand while they ate with the other. So in our own nod to the Marinetti Cubes, we devised a tasting that we hoped could offer fascinating insights into whisky delectation.

The concept was simple. Modify the outside surface of six Society copita tasting glasses, applying a unique texture to each one. Entice two willing SMWS members, Katia and Roy, to an experiment using these glasses under the guise of ‘a mystery tasting’. And see what happens!

To add our own ‘je ne sais quoi’, both of the guests would be blindfolded to restrict their senses to touch, taste and smell alone. As for the glasses themselves, the selection of chosen textures consisted of (in order of appearance): coarse grit, wax, rubber, velour, fine sand and merino wool.

First up was a lively dram served in the coarse grit textured glass. The guests explored the rough crystals surrounding the glasses with great curiosity before bringing them to their noses, when Roy remarked: “The texture feels like tree bark, I can in fact smell pine, but maybe a bit more stone-like.”

ABOVE: Against the grain with a course grit textured glass

Katia and Roy get to grips with our experimental glasses

ABOVE: Roy is reminded of a short-haired sporran

After tasting the dram Katia was surprised. “I was expecting much harder flavours, but it is much softer in the mouth.” Which sparked the question, could the anticipation of hardness have actually softened the impact?

The next dram was from a distillery renowned for its textures, fittingly paired with the candle wax-coated glass.

“I’m definitely getting some wax, it’s got that lovely mouth-coating feeling,” Roy remarked. “But so far I feel it’s the nose that’s being affected the most rather than the taste.”

It’s a fascinating observation, showing how even aromas are commonly described as textures. It smells waxy, it smells creamy, it smells prickly or it smells fleshy. The fact is that the brain combines our senses into a single image that we perceive as flavour. Imagine sitting in a cinema, we see the actor on the screen talking, yet the image is in front of us while the sound is coming from elsewhere. The brain fuses them into one.

We continued through a smoky escapade combined with soft rubber and onto the curious directional texture of velour, which brought back memories for Roy: “It reminds me of a shorter-haired version of my sporran!”

Moving on, the sand-coated glass created its own scene that left us questioning if saltiness was from the whisky or the thought of sand itself. “It has a fine roughness but it’s quite smooth, maybe a little bit of saltiness on the nose,” observed Roy. The final dram was the comforting fluff of merino wool, as Katia explained: “I’m expecting marshmallows and candyfloss. It’s quite soft and doesn’t need water but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was quite a young dram.”

Katia and Roy kindly organised the drams into their order of preference. However, the interesting yet perhaps slightly cruel twist to the experiment was that only three different whiskies were served.

ABOVE: Katia said that a rubbery texture enhanced her dram

Katia in particular was astounded. She had designated the same whisky (4.297) as both her favourite and least favourite dram

The very apt Cask No. 112.97: A Tongue-Tingling Teaser paired with grit and velour, Cask No. 26.184: Lychee Scented Candles paired with wax and sand and Cask No. 4.297: Film Star Hangs Out At Smokers’ Corner paired with rubber and merino wool.

Katia in particular was astounded. She had designated the same whisky (4.297) as both her favourite and least favourite dram. I had expected the merino wool-coated glass to most favourably accentuate the flavours.

It was surprising therefore, that the rubber-coated glass came out on top for both Katia and Roy, while the same dram paired with soft merino was the least favourite for Katia, and the third from bottom for Roy.

“It’s very misleading, leaving out seeing the colour and viscosity in the glass. You do get an expectation from the feeling in the fingers, but it doesn’t always translate to the flavour,” said Katia.

So what are our conclusions? Clearly the texture of the glass has an impact on our perception of flavour, however it appears to be a complex process that transcends simple associations. However, in our tiny cross-section of just two Society members, we feel that we have created a flame of an idea. A flame that one day may even grow big enough to toast marshmallows.

Watch our video of the sensory experiment below…