Getting the most from a whisky festival

The hall is bigger than your palate

Start with the arithmetic. Ten 15 ml pours at 46% ABV contain about 69 ml of pure alcohol. That is the same as roughly 172 ml of a 40% whisky, close to three large pegs. Many festival whiskies are stronger than 46%. Cask strength bottlings often run 50 to 60%.

Your palate also tires long before the alcohol catches up. After a dozen strong whiskies, most people struggle to tell them apart. The answer is not to taste more quickly. It is to taste less and choose better.

Plan before you go

Most festivals publish an exhibitor list. Read it in advance and pick eight to ten whiskies you cannot easily taste elsewhere: limited releases, distilleries new to you, styles you have never tried. Skip the bottles on your local shop shelf.

Check whether masterclasses need booking. A guided session with a distiller or blender is often the best value of the day, because someone explains what you are tasting. Our guide to why most whisky is bottled at 40% is good background for the strength debates you will hear.

Taste in the right order

Start with lighter, lower-strength, unpeated whiskies. Move on to richer sherry cask styles. Leave peated and cask strength whiskies for later, because smoke and high alcohol linger on the palate and blur whatever comes after.

Walk the hall in that order, not in the order the stands happen to be laid out. It takes more steps and gives much better notes.

Rinse your glass with a little water between whiskies, or ask the stand for a fresh one. A peated dram left in the bottom of the glass will flavour the next pour. Keep a small bottle of water just for rinsing.

Pace yourself and spit

Spitting is normal at a festival. Professionals do it all day. Use the spittoons or carry a cup. You can also pour away what is left in your glass once you have tasted it. Nobody at the stand will be offended.

Drink a glass of water between every pour. Eat a proper meal before you arrive and keep eating through the day. Plain bread and crackers also reset the palate. Take a break outside the hall every hour or so. Fresh air resets the nose as well as the head. You will taste the next whisky more clearly for it.

Talk to the people behind the stand

The person pouring is often a brand ambassador, a distillery worker or sometimes the distiller. Ask about the cask, the mash bill, the strength and whether the whisky is chill filtered. Ask what they would drink next. You will learn more in two minutes of conversation than from the leaflet.

Be considerate at busy stands. Taste, ask a question or two and make room for the next person. Quieter stands, often the smaller or newer producers, are where the best conversations happen. A distillery you have never heard of may have the most interesting whisky in the room and the most time to talk about it.

Take notes or it never happened

By the afternoon, the morning's whiskies will have blurred. Take a photo of each label and write three words about each whisky on your phone. Add a simple score. Those notes are what you take home.

Back home, move them into a proper record. Our guide to keeping a whisky journal explains a format that makes them useful later, especially when you are deciding which full bottle to buy.

Getting home

Plan your transport before you arrive. Festivals often end in the evening, when cabs are scarce and surge prices run high, so book or arrange your ride early. Take a cab, the metro or arrange a lift with someone who is not drinking. Never drive after a festival, however much you spat.

Drink water before you sleep. If you bought bottles at the festival, check the rules on carrying liquor in your state, especially if you are travelling across a state border.

Write your list of five

Before your next festival, look up the exhibitor list and write down five whiskies you want to taste and why. Put them in tasting order, light to heavy.

Treat those five as the day's main course. Anything else you taste is a bonus. If a stand runs out of one of your five, ask what they would pour instead. It is often something more interesting. You will leave with clearer notes and a clearer head.

Common questions

How many whiskies should I taste at a festival?

Fewer than you think. Eight to ten carefully chosen whiskies, with water between each and spitting where possible, gives better notes than thirty.

Is it rude to spit at a whisky festival?

No. Spitting and pouring away are normal at festivals. Professionals do it all day.

What order should I taste whiskies in?

Light and unpeated first, then sherry cask styles, then peated and cask strength whiskies last.