Texture’s vital role in whisky tasting

I’m sitting there looking at the duck’s flipper on the plate in front of me. The first question buzzing in my brain is why? Judging by the reaction of my fellow diners, I’m on my own when it comes to considering the appendage a somewhat unusual addition to a dinner. After a week in China I thought I was inured to such arrivals, but every meal brings a new surprise.

‘Don’t ever ask what it is,’ old China hands have told me, ‘just eat it.’ But this is clearly a flipper and the question is still why? (although the supplementary how? is rapidly pushing it out of the way). Judging by my companions’ actions you just pick it up and bite.

Someone appears at my side. He’s holding a glass. Time for a toast. I stand up, we clink glasses and drain the whisky. I’m secretly hoping that he strikes up a conversation and the flipper will be whisked away and the next course set down. No chance. It’s still there.

I pick it up and bite. To be honest, there’s not much flavour, bar soy. The texture however is exactly what you expect. Chicken feet are crunchy. Duck flippers are… well… flippery. It’s a cultural thing.

Unique nose: Our perception of an aroma is based on our own personal experiences

Each of us interprets the world in different ways because our experiences are so varied. Upbringing, culture, preferences and aversions all impact how we read and speak about our experiences. Because of this, no two people will describe an aroma in the same way.

The downside of this is that trying to understand what someone means when they describe an aroma is akin to cracking a code. If we all say different things for the same smell — I smell a clean hamster cage in this glass, you smell porridge — then how can we reach some type of consensus, or understanding? We are both correct, but how do we understand what the other is saying?

One way is by creating an agreed terminology. My hamster cages and your bowl of porridge both mean ‘malty’. It’s a step in the right direction, while also reinforcing the point that you must trust your own nose.

Having this shared nomenclature is important, especially as we’re told that nosing a whisky is the most important element within ‘tasting’. Given this, there’s little surprise, then, that Richard Paterson’s conk is insured for US$1 million, just like Kim Kardashian’s arse (I apologise for the image this has created in your mind).

Sacred snifter: Dalmore master blender Richard Paterson's nose is allegedly insured for more than US$1 million

‘The nose knows’ makes sense if you are assessing a huge number of whiskies, but it’s a line which, I think, downplays the importance of the palate.

The same issues over language still apply in the mouth, because there we are dealing not just with smell but with taste, and specifically the fusing of those two senses into the thing we call flavour. There is however another sense which we overlook, that of touch.

A whisky doesn’t give all its secrets up at the same time. It develops and changes on the nose and in the mouth. What appears at the start of the tongue is different in the middle, and changes again at the end. There’s a journey, a narrative, and texture’s role in this is hugely significant — if underappreciated.

I’ve found out over the years that while smell is cultural (and therefore hard to translate), our sense of textures are shared. We will use different words to describe aroma and flavour, but we’ll agree about the whisky’s texture and the shape it makes in the mouth. It can be thin and sharp, or it can fatten in the middle of the tongue. It can whizz along, or slowly coat the mouth. We concur when smoke emerges, or at what point tannins grip.

If you ignore texture, you lose a significant element of the whisky’s story. Within texture lies a way to discover a common language. By thinking and talking about feel and shape, we can discuss more easily how things evolve on the palate.

That flipper now makes more sense. Asian cuisines always take texture into consideration. Foods are eaten not just because of their flavour, but because of complementary and opposing textures: soft, rigid, pliant, gluey and slippery. They are there to give the senses something else to think about, and to add to the overall balance of a meal. It’s the same in whisky. Being aware of feel and the way things change in shape, are both things we can share. Allow them to flow.

Now… back to the flipper.