Whisky Classified -  Seminar and Tutored Tasting

David Wishart, University of St. Andrews

The talk describes the cardinal flavours that can be found in single malt whiskies, and explains how the production and maturation processes develop these flavours.  To simplify the comparison of malt whiskies, a standardised profile of 12 flavour features was developed from around a thousand tasting notes and over 500 whisky terms.  The principal malt whiskies from all the Scottish distilleries were then profiled and grouped according to flavour.

This helps answer questions like -

• Oddbins offers a bewildering selection of malts, so what should I buy?
• Dad drinks Macallan, but I want to give him another malt that's similar in flavour which he will also enjoy?
• Can you suggest half a dozen malts for my cabinet that illustrate the full range of single malt whiskies?

See also www.whiskyclassified.com/seminars.html

Flyer for this meeting in Word 97

(Secretary's note: This meeting deals with complex issues in cluster analysis.  At the RSS Plymouth conference in 2002 it was one of the best attended meetings - even more so than some plenary talks.  David tells me that the meeting is likely to go on rather past the ordinary finishing time)