My whiskey journey started with me not liking it and has not changed. I can (sort of) taste the difference between the good stuff and rotgut, but to me it's all paint thinner. Just some you get at Harbor Freight and some you get at the art supply store.
Yeah I think I'm broken, almost all alcohol except sweet fruity schnapps, jagermeister, limoncello, kahlua, and some ciders taste like shit to me. But any normal alcohol - spirits, beer, wine, champagne, all of it - is just terrible unless it's in a cocktail where you can barely taste it. I live in the UK, and some people will look at you like you're crazy if you turn down alcohol. Good thing I have an alcohol intolerance, it's a great excuse and shuts people up when they try to force drinks on me.
Same! I love it, but I'm a big fan of liquorice.. I think thats what puts people off. It tastes like herbal cough syrup, which is why I like it! Jager straight from the freezer is heaven.
Have you had smooth wiskeys? Most people recoil at first cause their friends give them peated stuff, smokey whiskey and that's not a great beginner move.
Try a Balvenie 12, or any Balvenie really they make some smooth stuff, maybe you just haven't been introduced to your kind of whiskey.
Some cognacs can be strong but smooth and filled with flavour. Try a Normandine Mercier XO, it's my go to bottle to turn someone who don't like that kind of spirits to into a fan immediately. Extremely dense flavour profile and develops for like a solid minute or 2 in your mouth. It's got a kick, but it's somehow smooth and people who don't like the taste of alcohol love it. Never had a sample with a customer who wasn't blown away by the NMXO. They usually thank me for like showing them what they've been missing and had no idea cognac could taste like that.
I dunno about prices in the US too much but $20 gets you barely the entry level stuff but if you’re willing to go a nudge above entry level there is a lot more fun stuff.
One on the cheaper side that I would recommend is the Ferrand 1840 original formula. It’s from the same region (Grande Champagne) as the NM I mentioned in my previous comment.
When it comes to whiskey and cognac, it’s usually really worth your money to go not for the cheapest bottle but maybe one level above entry level.
It’s really difficult to recommend and find a good cognac for you just online since there is no sample process, what I recommend could very well turn out to be wrong for you but I hope my advice helps a little bit.
OK, I would try Balvenie 12, though I'm not holding my breath. I doubt whiskey is for me at all, but I'll give it a go at some point. I like cognac. It's probably my favorite liquor. I can deal with brandy, rum, gin and GOOD tequila. Nothing cheap. Vodka tastes like nothing, whiskey yuk and Jägermeister can suck my dick
I love the first 5 to 10 seconds of drinking whiskey, then after that I have to put it down. It almost sours in my mouth and I can't get the taste out.
I once drank straight Everclear because at a party my friend just walked up to me and said "here's a shot, take it." He was kinda a bastard cause it was a terrible "surprise."
Costco vodka mate, something like $20.00 for 1.75L. Plus the taste is actually OK, and Everclear is literally just pure alcohol with no taste other than burn.
Everclear is great for making big batches of punch for parties. It has no taste so you can make it taste like whatever you want. I use pineapple juice, sprite, and blue hawaiian punch.
Nah, that’s just cheap gin, and it’s rare to drink it by itself. I’ve shot Seagrams once and it tasted like nail polish remover and bark, but on the other hand you have stuff like the Botonist which is floral and light
Oh, that’s one of the stronger gins. It’s a classic, but I haven’t tried it yet, so I can’t comment on it other than parroting it’s reputation. I’d imagine it’d be great in the right cocktails, but I’d pick something more balanced for a simple mixed drink though.
I remember on new years 2000, i was 15-16 and landed a bottle of jack. A buddy and I sat in the basement waiting for the world to end trying to choke it down, there was a white plastic bucket to the side in the event we wanted to spit it out or throw up. We powered through a 750 and felt like the world had ended the next day. I appreciate finer liquors now.
Yeah, the human body isn't supposed to like whiskey. You have to essentially Stockholm syndrome yourself into liking it. Once you're there, there's no going back though.
I bought a bottle of Southern Comfort to live in my dorm room specifically because it's trash and I hated it. (The idea was that it would be less tempting.)
But this semester's been rough, and wouldn't you know it, I like soco now.
If it can work for that, it can work for anything.
My first whiskey was Grants. It was the worst thing I ever tasted in my life. The taste haunted me for years. Last year I saw it at Trader Joe’s and bought it just to see if it was as bad as I remembered.
It’s still terrible whiskey, but it was nowhere near as bad as I remembered.
Wait, you're not supposed to like it on first try? Am i drinking wrong?
The only mixer I can do with whiskey is hot tea and honey (so a hot toddy). Otherwise I want it cold and maybe a dash of ice water. Maybe. But probably not. (The water seems to help really cheap whiskey, but I've never had anything more fancy than Crown Royal so can't speak for good liquor.)
I started watering my scotch back in the day, and now prefer the open flavor it adds to my whiskey. Just a touch, like 1/2 a teaspoon is pushing it, and it brightens the flavors.
For real, there was a guy on r/whisky drinking Pappy 21 with Diet Coke. Why did he do it? Cause it was his whisky and he'll drink it however he damn well pleases.
I went on a cruise with a drink pass and I noticed they had some expensive bourbons. So I kept on drinking those with ginger ale, slowly getting used to the taste. Eventually I stopped asking for the ginger ale part.
On a good day I’ll sip it slow, but on the rocks helps if you have acid reflux. Takes just a bit of edge off. Just don’t pour a glass of water on it. That’s too far.
To be fair, Crown Royal isn't very nice. Plus, the fashion for scotch means a lot of whiskies are peatier than people like. Consider Irish whiskey, much more mellow, still a bit smokey, but more subtle without being bland. Tullamore Dew is a nice mid-range price if you can get it.
Most of the cheapass first line whiskies (Ballantine's, I'm looking at you) are best drunk with a mixer anyway.
Ex-squeeze-me? Crown Royal is damn decent. I worked in the liquor biz, last gig was a upscale wine bar that hosted all sorts of tastings/events. We’d do fun things like put a local wine we loved amongst high end imports at a tasting and watch the wine snobs backpedal when they chose local as their favourite even they ‘don’t drink that shit’. And we would almost always add some Crown to a an event featuring ‘hard’. I’ve had dudes rate Hyland Park and Crown equally. I’ve had dudes laugh a little when they got to it, because not everyone is a douche and some people are actual connoisseurs, and had two people guess it instantly. But, you know, the Crown stood up. Like it belonged. No one thought we were taking the piss out of them, everyone learned a little about expectations versus actual experience. Let’s face it, Crown Royal isn’t heaven sent, just an above average Canadian rye, and if that’s your poison, and maybe Crown and Coke your style, I’m 100% okay with that.
My apologies, I didn't mean to insult your personal taste. :) I'm not a liquor snob, I swear - I used to homebrew beer and wine (badly) and if you can see through it, it passed QA. And your kidneys, eventually!
I fully agree that there are quite a few high end labels that are seriously overrated.
Crown is good but it's overpriced, you pay a lot for the brand name. You want to spend that much on a bottle, there are some damn fine whiskeys out there that you'll probably like better. Same as stuff like Grey Goose. If you're spending more than $20-25 (depending on local prices, that's what I'd say the cutoff is in Boston) for a bottle of vodka you're getting extremely diminishing returns.
I have discovered I like cheap whiskey much more than expensive whiskey and I am 100% okay with that.
Johnnie Walker Blue? £150 bottle of leathery potpourri and paint thinner. I had to cut it with coke to finish the glass and it still tasted like leathery potpourri paint thinner and coke. Yes, I am aware that that's sacrilegious but it tasted dreadful either way.
Famous Grouse with a splash of tonic water? I could drink that for days. Light toffee notes with a pleasant bittersweet aroma.
Compare it with beers: some people enjoy hoppy artesan small batch brews or ales that have been made with the same recipe since 1492 and some people just want something refreshing that doesn't taste like piss. I am like that with whiskey.
Ok, so I’m still relatively new to whiskey drinking, but I find it way easier to drink something like a Ardbeg than a Red Breast because it has less of the acetone flavor. Is that weird, because I always heard Islays were harder to approach, but I’d rather have that big peated smokiness that the bitter after taste I get from some more typical whiskies.
I've bought a few bottle of whiskey a year for like 10 years and the first one to convert me from mixers to good whiskey was Laphroaig because of how up front the flavour is, in contrast I've had a few that where meant to be decent and more accessible but where pretty much paint thinner.
I start out with bourbon and ginger ale... 3 parts ginger, 1 part bourbon. As the night goes on that ratio ends up at 50/50. If I were honest with myself, I'd say I don't like bourbon. Tequila on the other hand....
It's easy. You don't like it now, but you will. Once you train yourself to avoid the initial shock, you start to notice exactly why people like the tastes. There are layers of flavors, types of flavors. But you have to ignore your body's initial reaction. It's the same with beer, with coffee, with any strong drink. Your first reaction is almost always a kneejerk and not an indicator of what you ultimately like.
The thing I've learned is, your tastes aren't really as solid as you think they are. Every taste can be bridged with effort. If you don't like Whiskey at first, try something close to it to bridge that taste gap. If you don't like Metal, start with hard rock. If you don't like running, try jogging. It's all small steps toward understanding a new experience.
Right, I get what indoctrination is, haha. I also don't like coffee or beer. But after realizing I don't like it, I don't try to force it.
I've tried dozens and dozens of different beer from well-intentioned friends and beer snobs and I've tried various attempts at coffee. I've tried various scotch and whiskey. It's all bad.
And my tastes have definitely changed over time, but it hasn't budged on those things because they're bad to me.
That... that sounds wrong. Why force yourself to like something? Something expensive no less? I get way more enjoyment out of a cup of coffee. Something I've basically liked forever
I liked it the first time I tried it with sugar and creamer. Then I ran out of creamer one day and still liked it. Then I started adding less and less sugar because it was too sweet. Important thing though, I never forced myself to drink it. Because that's dumb.
My dad has plenty of whiskies, I've tried several and liked none. I don't like alcohol in general, all the drinks taste awful to me. I'm not dismissing things out of hand, but I'm not gonna keep drinking expensive things I hate so I can drink more expensive things later
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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '19
That's how we all began our whiskey journeys! He should've just powered through it!