@hypersimian

Been learning, trying whiskies for the last 5 years. American expat living in Japan. I found a lot of good stuff for pretty cheap (thanks to the Japanese liquor tax laws) and have a small but pretty good collection at home.

I know what I like and why I like it, but I don't have enough experience to put into words that other whiskey guys understand. I want to learn the vocab. I understand some of the major distinctions like peat and iodine (thanks to Laphroaig Quarter Cask) and I taste vanilla in some of the good bourbons. However, when it comes to all the fruit flavors and that kind of stuff, I'm lost.

I remember Dave Berry writing about a wine-tasting and he had a sentence like "Slighty Episcopalian in its pretentiousness, but with an underlaying bouquet of of a slutty bachelorette party." Sometimes that's what tasting notes seem to me.

I have Michael Jackson's Whiskey, one of Jim Murray's Whiskey Bibles and a handful of Malt Advocate issues. I like reading them and it no longer is a totally foreign language, but I'm not fully fluent either.