Whisky Lingo

CRAFT PRESENTATION

This seems very much a consumer term and not a producer term. It has no official definition, but I think it’s pretty universally understood to mean uncolored, unchillfiltered, and bottled at 46% ABV at least. Does anyone define it differently?

I really like that we have a blanket (and positive!) term for all that stuff so many of us care about.

I don’t know for sure, but I have the impression that this term originated with—or was at least popularized by—Ralfy on Youtube. If so, good for him. When other people use the term, I always assume that they’re Ralfy fans.

SHERRY BOMB

Like “peat monster,” this means a heavily sherried whisky and I think many folks reserve it for the high-ABV ones.

I’ve always kinda wondered whether guys (guys especially) use this term to make their sweet whiskies sound more masculine. If so, I can understand!

PEAT MONSTER

This just means a very peaty whisky, of course. I usually see “peat monster” reserved for high-ABV whisky, but not always.

I could take it or leave it, but I do appreciate the easy distinction between the really peaty stuff and the milder stuff. Like when the peated AnCnocs came out, “not peat monsters” was easy shorthand to understand what they’re like.

JUICE

This is just slang for whisky, of course. Some people seem to get bothered by the way that others throw around the term “juice.” The comments on this post from Sku’s Recent Eats, for example, have a fair amount of “juice” sarcasm: recenteats.blogspot.com/2014/09/…

Is this an annoying term for anyone here? Why? It doesn’t bother me, but I don’t hang out with anyone who says it in person.

ANORAK

“Anorak” just means a big fan of something unusual. Whiskydom was the first world in which I met the term “anorak” and I had no clue what it meant at first. I think it was yet another usage of it from Ralfy on Youtube that finally pushed me to google it one day way back. It seems like using the term “anorak” is itself a rather anoraky thing!

Wikipedia gives the following definition and then a fairly interesting story of how this term came about:

“In British slang an anorak is a person who has a very strong interest, perhaps obsessive, in niche subjects. This interest may be unacknowledged or not understood by the general public. The term is sometimes used synonymously with geek or nerd….”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorak_(slang)

FAKE TAN

This slang for a whisky being artificially colored might be my favorite all-time bit of whisky lingo. And it’s used infrequently enough to always be a little funny. “That Dalmore’s fine once you look past the fake tan.”

"Morish" is a little annoying. At first, I thought it had an illustrious place name etymology (which would have been moorish, not morish, my bad) and I was disappointed to learn that it simply means the whisky "leaves you wanting more."

As a writer and professor of writing the "ish" obsession of the English becomes as tiresome as the "like" obsession of my younger American students, some of whom actually work "lol," like, you know, like, into their essays. Ohmygod! www.youtube.com/watch The slang word "brilliant" in British English is also dying a slow and agonizing death.

Slavish dependence upon whisk{e}y tasting terminology lacks creativity, but a modicum of stock usage is, well . . . useful. It all depends upon what one's audience is after.

Those who want the shortest distance between their wallet and a bottle of whisky that they would like usually prefer "less-ish" rather than "morish."

MORISH or MOREISH

Yeah, I thought the same thing about it being related to the Moors (or the "Moops"—thank you, Seinfeld) until I looked it up like you did. I find it a little annoying but I get the impression that people who use it for whisky also use it for food and general consumables. I guess that makes it more understandable but also maybe a little more annoying too if it's a "foodie" thing. (Now THERE's a term I hate!)

Cheers, rigmorole.

@OlJas "Anorak" always meant "warm mountaineering pull-over outer layer" in my book. I learned this from reading old 1920s-1950s "Golden Age of Mountaineering" books.

ANORAK

Hey Wodha. For some reason my link above went to the wikipedia article about the actual coats. That's confusing. I'll try a link to the slang term article again:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorak_(slang)

Apparently the kind of coat you're talking about was worn by some trainspotters way back who started getting called "anoraks" themselves, and then the name became more generalized for geeky enthusiasts of various stripes. So I think you're talking about the beginning of the story and I'm talking about the end, so to speak. (I assume you're not just quibbling about the exact kind of coat named in the trainspotter story!)

NERVOUS

This seems like a term that European reviewers especially use when reviewing some whiskies—at least, Serge on whiskyfun. What do you understand it to mean? Do you see it as positive or negative?

OlJas, interesting idea for a thread! I don’t use NERVOUS myself, but I’d take it to mean a whisky that‘s weak, doesn’t assertively display it’s flavours, or doesn’t have a well-defined and balanced profile. Just speculating on that one.

Very few whisky terms annoy me. In keeping with my ever-so-diplomatic tone, I think people can use whatever words they want. Even words that I wouldn’t use personally don’t make me lose respect for the reviewer who does. Some people are blunt and to-the-point, others more fanciful, poetic, or colourful. You can even take some liberties with proper grammar so long as you’re not slaughtering the English language. There are limits, of course.

Anyway, here are a few that I like and find useful.

FIZZY - for mouthfeels that reminds us of something effervescent or slightly bubbly.

HIGH PITCHED / LOW PITCHED / BASS NOTES - I don't know if @Victor was the first to use music lingo while discussing whisky, or if he simply popularized it on this site. Either way the analogy fits. Bass notes is particularly useful for deep, heavy, resonant flavours.

APPROACHABLE / UNAPPROACHABLE -I might use these terms for any number of reasons, and they have no bearing on whether or not I like the whisky. Refers mostly to how someone might perceive the whisky at first, or as an initial reaction before they’ve spent any time with it.

HIGH PITCHED and LOW PITCHED are great terms. I'm not one to drink a whisky and label a whole littany of specific "notes"—I've never noticed flame-grilled underripe Venezuelan papaya, for example—but I do think in terms of HIGH v. LOW, BRIGHT v. DARK, and the like. Those kinds of descriptions resonate with me in reviews much more than flavor lists.

BARLEY CITRUS, MALT, BARLEY SUGAR

My pet peeve would be the use of obviously made-up terms.

I can accept that maybe someone can smell, in Scotch, not only rum notes, but "Honduran" rum. At least that does exist in nature (or nurture).

But "Barley citrus"? give me a break!

Also, I would love to know what "Malty" smells like, and what it tastes like. And what does Barley sugar taste like?

There are a lot of bullshit terms or descriptions out there, even distillers come up with dumb discriptions. Like Jura with the Prophecy: "spicy sea spray" .

FARMY An interesting one that is often used is "FARMY", used to describe whiskies with a rougher artisan like structure. I believe it is one of the vaguer terms used by whisky bloggers and no one seems to be sure what qualities a whisky would need to have to be qualified as a farm-like whisky. But it is a popular term to describe certain whiskies like Springbank, Ledaig, Brora, Miltonduff,... without going into too much detail

FARMY

I think "farmy" often implies a wink and an assumed understanding, like, "This malt is earthy and potentially off-putting. I might have said "dung" but I didn't want to scare anyone away. Proceed with caution."

FIZZY

I can't say I've ever tasted a whisky that seemed fizzy to me, but it's sounded awesome every time I've seen someone else call a whisky that.

MALTY

I'll admit to using this vague blanket term to encompass all scotch and Irish whiskies that aren't peated or sherried. I don't know that I'd put it in a review, but I use it all the time to lump together bottles in my mind (or, I admit it, on my bottles spreadsheet).

Typical internal monologue: "Hmmm, what malty bottle will I open when that Laddie 10 is gone? Ah, Writers Tears. That's the ticket"

@Nozinan I've tasted malt extract. It's liquid. I've also been inside a large, macro brewery. For me (and my uncle, who works at said brewery), talking about something smelling or tasting of malt, makes perfect sense. I can't speak for the barley citrus thing, though.

Also, barley sugar could mean several things. I know it as a sort of hard candy/boiled sweets. Also made with malt extract, therefore you get a certain sweetness about it. In Norway we have a brand I think is named Maltkaramell (malt caramels).

Both of those makes perfect sense to me, at least. :P

(Just to second a point that hunggar made: Yes, let's keep this diplomatic. I see nothing wrong with some good-natured flogging of our pet peeves, but I don't want this to veer into a "hate list.")

@Fiberfar

I know what malt is, but I'm just not sure what flavour it is in my scotch. That was why I asked, not because I object to it.

At least one line commentator discusses "Muscovado sugar". Again, sugar is sugar. Maybe brown sugar in general but I could never claim anything more detailed.

@OlJas, Whisky POP ROCKS (R), a condition that exists when flavours explode on the tongue as if the whisky is "fizzy", especially along the edges of the tongue. Bruichladdich Octomore 4.2 produces this effect for me...it is extremely intense and extremely enjoyable.

MALTY I'm afraid I tend to use this term quite a lot in my reviews. I brew ale at home so have a variety of malts as extract and crushed grains so I know what flavours/aromas i'm referring to. I'd suggest trying some dry breakfast cereals rich in bran as being everyday products which have malty flavours.

Yeah MALTY is not a mystery to me. It works for both whisky and beer. It can be applied to peated and sherried whiskies as well. Quite a handy word when I write something up.

Paddockjudge's likening of Octomore to POP ROCKS just made me more desirous of a bottle than all the reviews I've ever read.

IRON DRAM

Jonny McCormick over at the Whisky Advocate tried to coin this term for high-strength whiskies, which I thought was pretty silly: whiskyadvocate.com/whisky/2014/…

I think the label would have been fine for a "hook" on a single article about high-strength whisky, but I found it annoying that he capitalized it. Like it's A Thing. And I'm pretty sure he's continued trying to push that term in subsequent whisky reviews, but I was unable to find one.

I'm happy to report that I've never seen anyone else adopt that lingo since.

CLOYING

When I first started reading whisky reviews, I thought this term was just a personal quirk of John Hansel at Whisky Advocate. I think I had only previously seen it ascribed to people. Then I saw "cloying" repeatedly, and from other writers, so I realized that it's a pretty standard threshold that people use to assess all sorts of consumables.

I always take it to mean "too sweet; sweet to the extent that it's a negative." Interestingly, though, I recently read a review (here on Connosr, I think) that called a whisky "cloying" in what seemed like a positive way. I can't find it now or recall what whisky it was. Boo.

So when you taste a sweeter whisky, does the word "cloying" ever come to mind?

If you read it in a review, do alarm bells go off?

@rigmorol You made me laugh, "less-ish".

I use to drink a product called Ovaltine, that's what I think of when I think "Malty".

My favorite term on this discussion is "Approachable", I heard that one used a lot. It sounds like Richard Paterson. " Hello, How are you, Quite well, Thank you very much".

@OlJas, yes CLOYING is always a negative term for me, and I use it that way in whisky reviews. Cloying means to me drippingly, drowningly, suffocatingly, throbbingly sweet...ACHING with sweetness, and usually not a clean finely textured sweetness either, but a thick-high-fructose-corn-syrup kind of sweetness.

@hunggar and others...a MALTY whisky for me (probably the poster child, in quite a good way, for the term) would be Glengoyne 10. Seemingly quite absent of peat/sherry notes, the "graininess" of the spirit is able to shine through quite nicely.