Whisky Colour

[Diademo]

I was checking my whisky notes for the last few years and found out that the biggest inconsistence (beside my evolving and always changing taste) is in colour description.

Years ago I used rather loose approach, based on wine tasting "rules"? (I've done quite a lot wine tasting for different wine events). Then I started to use simplified scale with Amber as central point, and now, at least in the last few years, I'm using colour bar from Whisky Magazine.

There are many different colour scales for whisky nowadays but nothing seem to please me. I will probably stick with my WM bar for a while or make one based on my perception of whisky rainbow.

What scale you guys are using for your tasting notes?

Amber bar


WM bar



: and we can use this one post festum:
http://kottke.org/12/10/wheel-of-urine

[Blackadder]

I rarely take note of the colour unless I know for sure it has had no colour added but even then I don't use a scale, just make a comment if it is particularly dark or light in colour.

[sorren]

Colour is one of the notes I don't pay too much attention to, caramel is added to too many drams to give merit to awarding colour marks.. Ban the colour additive and all will be good 😊

[opelfruit]

Ditto.


It's pretty much irrelevant unless they state naural colour. If it's got e150 added then the colour gives no indication to the maturation methods and therefore expected taste profile, unless it states on the bottle that it's been sherry aged etc.....but then you're not going off colour, but the notes on the bottle.
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"Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough."

[TheWM]

I'm glad you've brought this up as an issue. Firstly, whilst it's great that you're using the scale I devised, I'm pretty sure that the standard copyright payment has not been issued* so can you sort that out asap...

But I have noticed whilst cracking open a few bottles this weekend the difference in colour in the supposedly same age/type of finish whiskies. Put a Balblair against a Glenfarclas, for example and the difference is noticeable. But, AFAIK there is no colouring in either of them, or did I dream that?

[opelfruit]

Depends on the amount of sherry in the mix, the type of sherry, the actual number of years maturation (not the minimum stated) the amount of time for a finish, the number of casks used per batch, activeness of the casks, nuber of refills.....yadda yadda. Get 2 farclas 105's together and they'll be a difference, if only slight.


And correct, neither use colouring.
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"Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough."

[Diademo]

I agree that colour is unimportant for taste of the whisky. I'm drinking mostly uncoloured malts and colour is many occasions only indicator of type of used casks (not their quality).

I'm sticking with this definitions because I used to write tasting notes for my Cuban cigars for more than 20 years. If you are changing the method (as I've done in the past), comparison with older whiskies get blurred, of course if you care about this:

[Brummie]

Even with added colour, the colour of the whisky is still a bit of an indication of the body and richness of the whisky, I don't think many distilleries are very heavy handed with colouring, I may be wrong.

[Diademo]

[TheWM]

No - I was making it up...!

[opelfruit]

Sarcasm is a British thing....right
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"Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough."

[Diademo]

[TheWM]

[sorren]

That's true, shoot first then ask if it hurt 😂😂