Whisky Nosing Kit – Le Nez du Whisky
Le Nez du Whisky, which I ordered in the past few days, is the most comprehensive whisky nosing kit in the world created by wine expert Jean Lenoir in collaboration with whisky experts such as Martine Nouet and Charles MacLean
In my previous articles, I summarized how to organize a whisky tasting event, and things we should pay attention to when describing smell and taste characteristics.
During whisky tasting, our key point is to correctly describe the smells we have nosed. However, this needs a bit of experience and improves when you nose a lot of whisky. It is like how athletes build muscles by training a lot; the more we nose, the more the receptors in our nose improve.
If I tell you to remember the smell of banana, it is impossible for you to do so (I know you are trying to recall the smell but it is not working) because our brain codes smells only if we nosed the same smell before – in a way it recalls the information. If I hand you a glass of milk and ask you how it smells, providing that it is banana milk, you can easily say that it smells like banana because that smell has already been coded in your brain and you know it since your childhood. Things work similarly for whisky as well, but smells are much more complex and not as distinct as in banana milk. For this reason, it is very important we exercise with nosing kits and code the smells in our brain. Especially we need to exercise with unfamiliar smells that we do not always experience in our daily life.
When we nose whisky, we try to describe floral, woodsy, synthetic, smoky smells etc. Let’s say the smell of black pepper; you can go and easily nose some black pepper in your kitchen and recall its smell, but when it comes to resin, ginger, hazelnut etc., you may not necessarily keep those near at hand. That is where nosing kits come into play!
Le Nez du Whisky, which I ordered in the past few days, is the most comprehensive whisky nosing kit in the world created by wine expert Jean Lenoir in collaboration with whisky experts such as Martine Nouet and Charles MacLean. The kit includes a 140-page book, whisky aroma wheel chart and 54 aroma vials:
FLORAL NOTES: 1 blackcurrant bud, 2 geranium, 3 honey, 4 rose, 5 tobacco leaf, 6 hay, 7 green grass.
FRUIT NOTES: 8 pineapple, 9 cherry, 10 peach, 11 pear, 12 apple, 13 lemon, 14 mandarin, 15 orange, 16 pomelo, 17 dried fig, 18 walnut, 19 prune.
WOODSY NOTES: 20 oak, 21 resinous, 22 sherry, 23 toasted almond, 24 toasted hazelnut, 25 coconut, 26 caramel, 27 chocolate, 28 custard, 29 vanilla, 30 anise, 31 cinnamon, 32 ginger, 33 herbs, 34 mint, 35 nutmeg, 36 allspice, 37 black pepper, 38 liquorice, 39 earthy.
VARIOUS NOTES: 40 biscuit, 41 coffee, 42 toast, 43 malt, 44 butter, 45 leather, 46 broiled meat.
PHENOLIC NOTES: 47 smoky note, 48 peat, 49 seaweed, 50 seashell, 51 medicinal, 52 rubber, 53 tar, 54 sulfur.
If you’d like to order this kit online here’s the address http://www.lenez.com/en/kits/whisky/nez-du-whisky
