A vertical tasting of one distillery

What a vertical tasting is

In wine, a vertical tasting means tasting the same wine from several vintages. In whisky the idea is borrowed loosely. A vertical usually means several whiskies from one distillery, varied along one axis: age, vintage, cask type or peat level.

The point is to hold the distillery constant. Same water source, same stills, same yeast regime, same house style. Whatever changes between glasses is down to the variable you chose. Whatever stays the same is the distillery's fingerprint.

Choose your axis

Pick one variable and stick to it:

• Age: the core range, for example 10, 12, 15 and 18 years. The most common and easiest to find.
• Cask: the same distillery from ex-bourbon, sherry and a wine or port finish.
• Peat: some distilleries make unpeated, lightly peated and heavily peated spirit. Our guide to peated and unpeated runs in one distillery explains how.
• Vintage or batch: the same expression from different years or batch numbers, to see consistency.

Mixing axes, say a young sherry cask and an old ex-bourbon, makes it hard to tell what caused what. Keep it clean.

Finding the bottles

Four bottles from one distillery is a real outlay. Sharing helps: a tasting group where each person brings one bottle keeps the cost down. Miniatures and sample sets, where available, are ideal. Some bars will pour a flight from one distillery if you ask.

In India, imported range depth depends on the state, so a full core range may not be on one shelf. Indian single malt distilleries often release several expressions from the same spirit, which makes a good home grown vertical. Our guide to Indian single malt introduces the category.

Order, pours and pace

Taste from lightest to heaviest. For an age vertical, that is youngest to oldest. For a cask vertical, ex-bourbon before sherry before wine finish. For a peat vertical, unpeated first and heavily peated last, because smoke lingers and masks everything after it.

Pour 15 to 20 ml of each into identical glasses. Note the ABV of each bottle. If one is much stronger, consider adding water to bring it closer to the others before you compare.

Four glasses of whisky is a lot if you finish every pour. You do not have to. Taste, note and leave the rest, or use a spittoon. Serve water and simple food alongside. In a warm room, cover glasses between sniffs. Never drink and drive.

Find the fingerprint

As you taste, keep two lists. The first is notes that appear in every glass. The second is notes that appear in only one or two.

The first list is the distillery character: perhaps a waxy texture, a particular fruit or a malty note that runs through every expression regardless of cask or age. That is the spirit talking, shaped by the stills, the fermentation and the cut.

The second list is the variable. In an age vertical, you might see wood and dried fruit grow and fresh fruit fade. In a cask vertical, vanilla in one glass and raisin in another. Our guide to how whisky is made shows where each kind of note comes from.

When the fingerprint is hard to find

Some distilleries have a very clear house character that runs through everything. Others are harder to pin down, especially when heavy sherry casks or long ageing pile wood flavour on top of a light spirit. If your shared list is short, that is a result too. It tells you the cask does most of the talking at this distillery.

A refill cask expression helps in that case. It carries the least wood and shows the most spirit, so use it as the anchor glass and compare every other expression back to it.

What analysts and blenders take from it

Distilleries run their own verticals constantly, as quality checks. A blender tasting many casks of the same spirit at different ages is doing a vertical every working day. That is how a house style is kept consistent while individual casks vary.

For anyone on the business side of whisky, a vertical is also the best way to understand why the range is priced the way it is. Each extra year means more stock lost to evaporation and more years of tied up capital. Tasting the difference shows what the customer is being asked to pay for.

Picking a distillery fingerprint reliably, across ages and casks, is a skill that rewards structured training with reference samples.

Start with two bottles from one distillery

Your first step: you do not need four bottles to begin. Take two expressions from one distillery that differ in only one way, perhaps age or cask. Taste them side by side and write one list of what they share and one of what differs. The shared list is your first distillery fingerprint.

Common questions

What is a vertical whisky tasting?

Tasting several whiskies from one distillery that vary along a single axis, such as age, cask or peat level.

How many whiskies should a vertical include?

Three or four is ideal, though two expressions differing in one way is a good start.

What order should I taste a vertical in?

Lightest to heaviest: youngest to oldest, ex-bourbon before sherry, unpeated before peated.