I take out my trusty Glencarin glasses and jump into deep
end of the alcoholic pool. The first
thing that struck me was the how hot the nose was. The way the glass was shaped concentrated
every bit of the hot alcohols and directed them straight into your nose
holes. The taste followed suit with
plenty of heat and some oak and vanilla in the background. Ever since I acquired my Glencarin glass I
figured this was the best vessel available to enjoy my whiskey. I was well aware that I was ingesting 142
proof alcohol but it seemed that there was too much heat muddying the nose and
taste for no reason other than the shape of the glass. Since I’ve completed my head to head
comparison of the new fangled beer glasses, I have a new appreciation for how
the shape of a vessel can accentuate your drinking experience. Couple this with the incessant advertising for
Christmas sales around Thanksgiving which I saw a new Glencarin Wide-Bowl whiskey
glass being advertised. This got my
wallet busting curiosity in full blown overdrive.
The research begins and I find several different whiskey
glass designs ranging in price from reasonable to the pinnacle of ridiculousness,
Riedel Sommeliers Single Malt Scotch Glass weighing in at $68.00 per glass. I based my selection on some general
principles I learned from my beer glass experiment. A flared bowl should accentuate sweetness and
malt, a narrower mouth will concentrate aromas and flavors. Based on this I narrowed my selection down to
two glasses. The flared rim Glencarin Wide-Bowl
and a well reviewed Glencarin Copita Nosing glass. This should be the best of both worlds, but
the question is do these principles hold true for whiskey as well as beer? I ended up at a website http://scotchwhiskeyglass.com/ because
it was one of the only websites that didn’t require you to order them in
sets. You can buy from them on
Amazon.com but I went straight to the website for fear that Amazon would be in
charge of shipping them. The website
looked rather pedestrian but the service/shipping was amazing. I had my glasses at my door in two days.
With glasses in hand, I set out to put whiskey glass design
to the ultimate test. I chose a bottle
of my W.L. Weller 12 year to test the glasses.
This is a “wheated” bourbon which has a nice complexity and a wonderful
smooth drinkability. Would I be able to
pick out the nuance of the bourbon in each of these glasses? I wasn’t sure either but I was excited to find out.
Original Glencarin:
I tried my original Glencarin glass with the narrow opening
first. Everything about it was hot as it
was with the George T Stagg. There was
some decent sweetness up front and then some spicy oak comes in briefly. Finally the burn would come out center stage
and then hit the back of your throat.
Glencarin Wide-Bowl:
I then moved to the Wide-Bowl glass expecting much better
malt and sweetness based on the flared rim.
With the wider bowl the nose seems lost compared to the other two
glasses. There was much less heat with
this glass. There was more intense
sweetness up front with smooth brown sugar coming through. This leads into a more complex mid palate
with distinct wood and straw character.
Glencarin Copita Nosing Glass:
If this were the Goldilocks fable this would be the “just
right” bed. The same complexity is
present from the Wide-Bowl with more of a blended quality. The nose is concentrated better but is
without the majority of the burn present in the Original Glencarin. This glass marries the sweetness, complexity,
and burn into perfect harmony.
Conclusion:
The Glencarin Copita Nosing Glass edges out the Glencarin
Wide-Bowl whiskey glass for the win. One
thing is for sure is that they are both much better at smoothing out bourbon
than the Original designed Glencarin glass.
Now when I enjoy whiskey I do it with the Copita Nosing Glass and a
little splash of water to open it up. I
guess the only thing left to do is to get the $68.00 Riedel glass to determine
the ultimate winner. On second thought I
think I’ll save my money for another bottle of bourbon.
Cheers!
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