Robyn Moscrop, 27, grew up with bull terriers, so three years ago she decided to adopt one and named him Bronson, Wales Online reports. He wasn’t the easiest puppy to raise but that didn’t stop him from being the apple of her eye.
“He was a crazy dog. He made such an impression on everyone because he had such a personality,” Good News Network reports. “He just kept me really busy and I’d see other people with their really well-behaved dogs and I’d be thinking ‘oh my god, why can my dog not be like that?’”
She spoiled her dog and would even rent out fields with other bull terrier owners and they would have massive 20-dog playdates. “He honestly had such an incredible life,” she recalls.
Sadly, Bronson unexpectedly passed away last July at the young age of 3. Moscrop was devastated.
The woman working at the crematorium told her she could have his ashes in a tattoo. She asked her boyfriend, George Ricketts, to give her a tattoo with Bronson’s ashes mixed into the ink. He was incredibly nervous that he’d mess up such an important piece, but he got to work.
It took him eight hours to get the tattoo right, but the final result looks perfect.
Portrait tattoo of Bronson process @heavyhandsgeorge Instagram for the artist. #tattoo #tattooartist #tattooexperience #tattoodog #dogtattoo #dogportrait #memorialtattoo
The tattoo has helped Moscrop get over the grief of losing Bronson because she feels like they’re always together.
“Sometimes I talk to [the tattoo] as though I talk to him,” she was quoted as saying in the New York Post. “It sounds silly, really, but sometimes when we’re at places, and say I’m just wearing a t-shirt, I just think, ‘Oh, he’s here with me seeing all this, too.’”
Moscrop’s tattoo may seem strange but people are doing a lot of creative things with ashes these days. You can have them pressed into vinyl records, turned into glass art, sent into space or make them part of a memorial fireworks display.
It’s all about giving the person a proper send-off and helping those who loved them heal.
u201cA devoted dog owner was so heartbroken when her beloved bull terrier passed away that she got his ashes inked permanently into her skin, so that heu2019s u2018always with her.u2019 Robyn Moscrop rescued her bull terrier Bronson back in 2019 who she u201cspoilt rottenu201d and https://t.co/3xt06BTmXdu201d
A tattoo of a pet with a piece of them included is a fantastic way to feel close to an animal one has lost.
Moscrop is feeling a lot better about losing Bronson after getting her tattoo and she recently added a new bull terrier to the family, 2-year-old Alabama.
“If I didn’t have my new dog, I’d find it really hard to speak about him,” she said. “But since I’ve got Alabama, she’s kind of filled that hole that he’s left and made it a lot easier to heal because it is awful losing your dog.”
Freddie Mercury had a voice and a stage presence unlike any other in rock music history. His unique talents helped propel the band Queen to the top of music charts and created a loyal fan base around the world.
Sadly, the world lost that voice when Mercury died of AIDS at age 45. For decades, most of us have assumed we’d heard all the music we were going to hear from him.
However, according to Yahoo! Entertainment, remaining Queen members Roger Taylor and Brian May announced this summer that they had found a never-released song they’d recorded with Mercury in 1988 as they were working on the album “The Miracle.”
“We did find a little gem from Freddie, that we’d kind of forgotten about,” Taylor said in June, according to the BBC. “It’s wonderful, a real discovery. It’s a very passionate piece.”
That “little gem” is a four-minute ballad called “Face It Alone.” Queen released a lyric video of the song on its YouTube channel, and it’s bringing fans to tears.
The lyrics are particularly heart-wrenching, considering the timing of the song’s recording. Mercury was reportedly diagnosed with HIV in 1987, though kept it a secret from the public and even from many who worked closely with him until shortly before his death.
Comments have poured in from around the world in multiple languages, and the sentiment is universal—people are deeply moved.
“Over 3 million views in one day. To hear Freddie’s voice again is so special. You live forever, darling. The song is heart breaking but then again, Queen’s songs are from the heart and that can never go wrong. Thank you to all who made it happen.” – sweet pea
“One day Freddie said: ‘I won’t be a star,I will be a Legend’And yes we all agree, he STILL REMAINS A LEGEND even after 31 years after his death. AMAZING.” – Gloria Sousa
“Freddie’s vocal is killing me same today as 20 years ago. Thank You Queen for this amazing gift after so many years. We love You.” – Adrian Kufel
“What to say?? A great magnificent surprise. All I know is that I cried the moment I heard this voice, these words…. Only Freddie. Love this man for eternity.. It seems as if he returned briefly to us!! To send us a message… What a beautiful present for all his fans, for this generation that has had the impact of the pandemic, this strange war, these strange times. So happy and touched to hear this now. Thank you Queen… Thank you Freddie forever !!!” – Fern 19671
“So great to see all the Freddie and Queen fans here today celebrating this song and Freddie’s amazing voice. I love how much Freddie is still treasured. I remember the day he passed away, how I cried. It’s like a gift to get this new song and have his song playing loud throughout the house today. We all love you dear Freddie.” – Sarah-Louise ASMR
Mercury was truly a legend in his own time, and hearing his voice anew almost makes it feel like he’s time-traveled to the here and now. What a lovely gift for Queen fans everywhere.
With Hispanic Heritage Month coming to a close, we thought it was time to talk about some Latinx and Hispanic creators to follow tomorrow and beyond. To compile this list, we dug into some of our favorite IG follows, artists, chefs, and spirits makers to find the young Hispanic folks who are blazing a new path in 2022 and beyond by up-ending the old for something new and fresh.
Below, we’ve compiled a list of Hispanic creators who excite us. These are the Hispanic thought leaders that we think you should give a follow and maybe even support by donating to their causes, buying their fashion, or amplifying to show support. The throughline between all of these young creators is that they’re pushing the line and doing something interesting in each of their respective fields.
Let’s dive in and find some cool Hispanic creators to celebrate the end of Hispanic Heritage Month!
Black-Mexican filmmaker Steve Vasquez grew up in a world where choosing one heritage over the other was often forced upon him by his external environment. For most of the world, he could be Black or he could be Mexican. He couldn’t be both. But as he came into his own, Vasquez realized that was bullshit because he never felt like just one thing — so why would he adhere to it? His experience was his and it informed how he carried himself through life and into becoming one of the most interesting burgeoning filmmakers working online today.
“I try to tap into that shared experience,” Vasquez tells us when talks about living in the world as a Black-Mexican American. “Having lived in two worlds and felt those worlds every day helps me when I’m directing people. I can help whoever is in front of the camera find themselves creatively and then express that.”
That POV comes through in Vasquez’s most recent work capturing UPROXX’s Fresh Pair where street kicks meet at the intersection of streetwear and hip-hop. There’s a sense of Vasquez’s own mantra throughout the show that, like him, “nothing is a monolith,” which he states proudly when talking about making Fresh Pair and Uproxx’s People’s Party with Talib Kweli.
Jassil Villanueva Quintana grew up with the history of rum and the Brugal rum dynasty as her childhood bedtime stories. To say that rum flows through her veins would be an understatement though. Yes, Quintana is a descendant of the Brugal rum family, but she’s also spent the majority of her life refining her palate, skills, and knowledge about rum and everything around rum.
Quintana was also the first female member of her family to achieve the title of “Maestra Ronera.” She’s also Brugal’s youngest master blender as well, having gained the title when she was only 32. All of which is a huge step forward into the future for the Dominican Republic rum brand and the industry in general. One of Quintana’s first releases celebrated the history and beauty of the rum she grew up with. The Papá Andrés blend is a 1,000-bottle super rare release that highlights the depth of the brand’s rum-making skills.
Lee Diaz is a multi-generational Angeleno. His love for his family’s home city runs deep and is steeped in Latinx/Hispanic heritage. That deep-seated adoration led Diaz to start a project that has gained massive popularity and won several awards for its look back at the history of Los Angeles.
Diaz’s “History of LA” Instagram page looks like a feed full of black-and-white imagery at first glance. Taking a closer look, you’ll start to spot long-running themes of the construction of Los Angeles, cultural events, sports, old Hollywood, the oil industry, major events, and everyday life. Going even deeper, Diaz offers a historical perspective of each image with detailed descriptions and context that brings every image to life in 2022. That keen eye for great photography and story-telling makes Diaz one of the great Angeleno archivists working today.
Based in Mexico City, Bárbara Sánchez-Kane is living in a fashion space that eschews the norm for the ethereal. Sánchez-Kane as a designer and boutique set out to bend classic Hispanic gender norms of “masculine” and “feminine” through a prism of Cronenbergian sexuality, Indigenous futurism, and poly-gender Latin/Hispanic identity.
While Sánchez-Kane is a fashion house headed by Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, there’s a sense of the designs as more of political and gender art than pure high fashion. The message of Bárbara Sánchez-Kane’s fashion is the point as it leans from the surreal to the mundane through busy lines, pan-sexuality, and exposure of the human body in cheeky and sometimes dark ways.
Awarding-Winning Afro-Latinx Pastry Chef — Paola Velez
Paola Velez worked her way from home baking to become one of the most respected pastry chefs in the world by 2020. Before the pandemic hit, Velez was the executive pastry chef at DC’s famed and now-closed Kith & Kin. She was also nominated for the James Beard Best Rising Star Pastry Chef award in 2020.
Since then, Velez has been baking to make the entire industry a better and more inclusive place through the co-founding of Bakers Against Racism. The non-profit is a place where bakers can lead the way in social change, raising funds, and supporting those in need. At the same time, Velez has been working with the DC bakery pop-up Doña Dona to create amazing confections that bridge her Afro-Latin heritage while also supporting progressive projects in the local area.
In just a few preseason games, the Malcolm Brogdon trade has already looked to be a smart move for the Boston Celtics. Boston sent a late first round pick and a collection of players to Indiana in exchange for the former Rookie of the Year, as Brogdon no longer fit Indiana’s timeline for a rebuild and his injury issues lowered his trade value around the league. As a sixth man, Brogdon’s size and floor general skills have provided a much-needed boost to a Celtic offense that could use another ball-handler.
In recent interview with Sirius XM NBA Radio, Brogdon revealed that Indiana gave him the option to go of one three teams, with two of them, Boston and Toronto, becoming feasible options to pull off a trade. Ultimately, Brogdon explained that he Boston because they gave him the best opportunity to win, thanks to their two superstar players.
“At the end of the day, we knew there was Boston, we knew Toronto we knew DC,” Brogdon said of his trade options. “DC fell off after the draft since they were thinking about trading that 10th pick for me. Toronto and Boston popped up. We had a choice to pursue — there wasn’t an offer on the table yet from either of them but the Pacers came to me and said we could pursue either of them and which one would I rather pursue? I choose Boston.”
…
“I thought this team was farther along,” Brogdon said of Boston. “They have a superstar in Jayson Tatum and probably another superstar in Jaylen Brown as well. I thought it would be a great fit for me because I wanted to win right now.”
Brogdon would have certainly been an interesting fit alongside Toronto’s brigade of rangy wings, but his assessment of Boston is correct. While the suspension of Ime Udoka looms over the team this year, the former Rookie of the Year should provide an added boost as the Celtics attempt to return to the NBA Finals.
Just as UK drill rapper Central Cee’s Still Loading WorldTour gets underway, he has released a surprise a new project. The No More Leaks EP sees Cench operating stealthily on four new tracks, raising the stoke for his first ever US headlining performances.
In a statement, Cench explained that the plan wasn’t to drop No More Leaks at this time, but outside factors forced his hand. “[I’m] only dropping this cos they leaked it,” he said; hence the EP’s title. The release is also accompanied by a video for “One Up,” a track where he re-hashes the road he took to now UK rap stardom: “For my livelihood, pushed white in my hood / But I don’t recommend it, there’s no longevity / Central, don’t forget me, money don’t make me lose my memory.” There’s an endless flow throughout these four new cuts, something that Central Cee set us up for on his recent LA Leakers Freestyle.
Watch the video for “One Up” above and check out the album artwork and tracklist for No More Leaks below.
Yes, lawd! Fans’ have been praying for Anderson .Paak and producer Knxwledge to once again team up as NxWorries, and today, it seems their prayers were answered. Los Angeles-based indie label Stones Throw — which released the duo’s 2016 debut album Yes, Lawd! — posted a photo of the two men together with the caption “in the lab.” As usual, .Paak grins from ear to ear in it as he watches Knxwledge working on his laptop. The photo was taken at Stones Throw Studios, where they’re presumably working on the long-awaited follow-up project.
If a new NxWorries project is indeed on the way, it’ll mark a quick turnaround from Andy’s last collaborative project, which was the group Silk Sonic with Bruno Mars. It certainly turned out to be a fruitful partnership; not only did their debut album, An Evening With Silk Sonic, spawn three top 20 hits including their chart-topping debut single “Leave The Door Open” but it also won four Grammy Awards for the song, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year. However, the album itself, which was released after its release year’s eligibility period, won’t be up for any awards this year after the group announced they were “bowing out” of consideration.
Even without the full slate of Grammy hardware they would have almost undoubtedly won, new music makes for a great consolation prize — especially if it’s a follow-up to NxWorries’ critically acclaimed, fan-favorite debut.
For those of us who dabble in the finer points of both pop music and baseball, we’ve all had a chuckle in the past when likening Cleveland Guardians pitcher Shane Bieber to globally-recognized pop sensation Justin Bieber. And maybe you’ve swapped the names before when mentioning the other by accident. It happens. The Bieber last name is far more synonymous with Justin than with Guardians ace Shane. But et tu Bob Costas? The Hall Of Fame sports broadcaster was calling the Guardians ALDS game versus the New York Yankees and referred to the pitcher as “Justin Bieber” before awkward hilarity ensued.
“Justin Bieber,” Costas said, before a multiple second pause. “Just threw his 84th pitch.” Two pitches later, after a strange silence, Costas must’ve gotten pinged by a producer, because he then admits to the mistake and tries to talk his way out of it. “I actually called Shane Bieber, Justin Bieber,” he said. “I vowed that would not happen. I’m sure it’s not the first time it’s happened in his life… I wonder if he’s watching the game?”
“If you guys can name one Justin Bieber song, I’ll give you ten bucks,” field reporter Lauren Shehadi chimed in. And before Costas could react, 62-year old color commentator and former New York Mets stud pitcher Ron Darling unexpectedly rose to the challenge: “Yummy.”
I guess Shane Bieber needs to break this jersey out when Bob Costas is in the booth pic.twitter.com/af2jfjeSGt
Halloween Ends might not be the final Halloween movie, but it’s the last Halloween movie starring iconic scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis. She even signed a contract saying so. The only thing scarier than Michael Myers is a team of high-priced lawyers. Actually, let me take it back. In terms of scariness, it goes 1) high-priced lawyers, 2) Freddy Krueger, 3) Spike the gremlin, then 4) Michael Myers.
There’s been three Halloween movies since 2018 and Gremlins is coming back as an animated series, but what about A Nightmare on Elm Street? There hasn’t been a new Nightmare (not to be confused with Wes Craven’s New Nightmare) since 2010’s reboot with Jackie Earle Haley, not Robert Englund, as Freddy. Heather Langenkamp, the actress who played Nancy Thompson in the three best Nightmare movies, is waiting.
“If Nancy could fight Freddy one last time, I would really like that,” she told ET Online. “Gosh, I’d love to see a future in that. I’ve been really watching the Halloween saga that’s been out, and I love watching Jamie Lee Curtis get to play that part. You know, this age, where I think we have so much to give to those storylines, but I wish I was in control of that, but unfortunately, it’s one of those Hollywood very complicated things.”
Langenkamp stars in one Netflix hit (The Midnight Club) and Englund is on another (Stranger Things). Surely the streaming service can take one series away from Ryan Murphy and give that money to Nancy and Freddy. How many shows does one person need? He already has, like, 15.
Following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building, long-time Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone was angling for a pardon after being the attempted coup failed to overturn the election results. That pardon never materialized, and now we know how Stone reacted to that news thanks to recently released documentary footage. In a nutshell, the rejected Batman villain was not happy.
As seen in the footage below from documentary filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen, Stone flipped out while on the phone with an unknown person, and he had some choice words for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who Stone blamed for the pardon falling through.
Unreleased subpoenaed footage: Stone angry that Trump didn’t grant him a second pardon melts down calling Ivanka Trump – abortionist bitch daughter. pic.twitter.com/aAAOZLC5fu
“Jared Kushner has an IQ of 70. He’s coming to Miami. We will eject him from Miami very quickly; he will be leaving very quickly,” Stone said, while visibly shaking in anger. “Very quickly.”
Stone continued: “He has 100 security guards. I will have 5,000 security guards. You want to fight. Let’s fight. Fuck you.” (The filmmakers remain unsure of who Stone directed this remark towards.)
“Fuck you and your abortionist bitch daughter,” he concluded, referring to Ivanka Trump.
According to Guldbrandsen, the January 6 committee has seen the footage, but elected not to show it during its public hearings. There is also footage that reportedly shows Matt Gaetz comforting Stone and letting him know that “The boss still has a very favorable view of you.”
Stone, however, wasn’t buying it. “I’ll go down hard, though,” he reportedly told Gaetz. “I’ll fight it right to the bitter end.”
Building a palate for tasting whiskey — or anything for that matter — takes time. There’s simply no getting around that. There are no shortcuts. There are no insider “tricks.” You have to put in the work, period. Because a well-developed palate is where technique meets training meets time. So let’s talk about actually building a whiskey palate.
Building a whiskey palate is about activating flavor receptors on your tongue. It’s about smell receptors in your olfactory and your brain translating them to something you recognize (you cannot crave something you’ve never eaten/drunk before). Whiskey has a makeup of a lot of chemicals — terpenes, esters, fatty acids, etc. — that produce about a thousand different flavor notes in any given pour. The number of flavor notes from those chemical compounds that you can detect and translate into a smell, a flavor, or a memory depends on how activated your palate is via your olfactory and taste buds and that’s based on what you’ve actually experienced in your life.
Look, I don’t want to be indelicate, but the blander your life and eating habits are, the fewer smell and flavor notes you’ll be able to find in a whiskey. It’s that simple. The more exposure you give yourself to life, the more you’ll be able to enjoy the nuances within it. That’s science, not my philosophy.
It’s also important to remember that smell is paramount in all of this. About 80 percent of everything you taste is actually based on what you can smell. Vanilla, for instance, has no taste. It’s all about the smell, which might blow some minds out there. But again, this is science. You can run this experiment at home if you’re incredulous. Simply pinch your nose completely shut and taste some Coke or super hoppy IPA or your favorite whiskey (making sure not to smell it first). I’ll wait.
The flavor should be almost gone, except for the bitterest parts of the IPA (which links to our ancestral need to identify “bitter” as “poisonous”). Very broadly, our tongue tastes basic notes: Umami, sweet, savory, bitter, sour. Our olfactory and Rolodex of flavors, smells, and experiences filed away in our brains translate those base flavors into, say, mushrooms, vanilla, soy sauce, bitter orange, and sour fruit. And then how those flavors express themselves on your palate (and in your mind) — butter-fried chanterelles, sushi rice soaked in soy sauce, vanilla pound cake, Campari, sour cherry pie — are only there and that specific if you’ve experienced those things before.
My point is, building a palate is more than just eating some good food and tasting a couple of hundred whiskeys — though you need to do that too. It’s about creating a full sensory experience in your memory bank and muscle memory that your brain can pull from to identify the massive amount of flavor notes that are chemically floating around in a glass of whiskey.
Below, I’m going to go through some of the things I’ve done to expand my palate and some of the things I’m doing currently. Hopefully, it’ll inspire you to take a chance and go out there and expand your palate too. And who am I to expound on all of this? Well, I make my living based on my palate and have for a long time. I probably should get it insured by Llyods of London or something, shouldn’t I?
Zach Johnston
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
PART I — Continue To Build Your Palate With Everything You Do
Zach Johnston
Very simply, you need to live more, eat more, drink more, and experience more to expand and grow your palate. For instance, being afraid of experiencing food from a different culture that’s outside of your norm means that you’ll never have a memory of the flavors or smells that food or drink is associated with. That means that, in turn, you’ll never be able to find similar flavor notes in a whiskey. In very basic terms, if you’ve never eaten funky creamy gorgonzola, you’re never going to find that note in a punchy Chianti or a cognac-finished 15-year-old bourbon.
I was extremely lucky as a child. I lived on a 10-acre working farm with a fruit orchard and 1/4-acre garden, Scottish Highlander cows, hogs, chickens, barn cats, and farm dogs right on the Salish Sea. I grew up foraging in the Olympic Mountains, fishing in the Pacific, and hunting for wild game. I rarely ate processed or boxed food. It was an experiential wonderland. And look, I was still allowed to go to Dairy Queen and McDonald’s. It wasn’t a cult farm situation — I had Taco Tuesdays in elementary school too.
I also had chores. Stacking bales of hay, polishing my dad’s boots, splitting firewood, mowing acres of lawn, washing the cars, and feeding animals. At the same time, I grew up in cafe kitchens that my grandmother owned. I was sorting lettuce leaves and sandwich rolls when I was five. Half of my family are Eastern European immigrants who cooked foods you find in Poland, Russia, Germany, and Lithuania. The other half is Indigenous folks from the Olympic Peninsula where gooey duck, oysters, elk, chanterelles, and wild huckleberries reigned supreme (amongst a million other things).
The point of all this is that I had a lucky childhood that started building a palate on my senses and in my brain before I ever knew what a freakin’ palate was. Those sense memories stick with me to this day and they inform what I taste when a eat or drink anything.
All of that is just my childhood. I could get into what 20 years of living abroad and traveling to somewhere around 80 countries added to my “well of experiences” too. Each stop was a new experience, a new smell, a new taste for the ol’ brain to file away that, in turn, informs my palate to this day. What I tasted in a pour of Wild Turkey 101 while living in Berlin is extremely different than what I taste in the exact same pour living in northern Kentucky. The air is different. The trees are different. My diet is different. The barometric pressure is different. The water is different.
All of this adds up. It’ll add up in your life too and already has throughout your entire life.
How do you continue to expand and build your palate and your brain’s memory of smells and tastes? Take the time to actually stop and smell the air. Taste the water. Feel the barometric pressure in the space around you. All of this makes a difference. Only you can build your palate. And you can only do that by taking the time to experience things.
To really build a pro palate, you cannot be afraid of new flavors, new experiences, or new smells. No one likes blue cheese or whiskey or vegemite the first time they try it. But over time, your palate expands, your brain creates new connections that it can translate, and then those flavors start to become tolerable, then they’re fine, and then, over time, they become desirable. That only happens if you put in the effort to expand your palate by eating, drinking, and experiencing the world around you.
Okay, let’s get into more direct ways that you can actually do some of this in the whiskey sphere.
PART II — Find A Whiskey And Food Pairing Experience Locally
Zach Johnston
The fastest way to test your new and expanding palate is to go to you a local whiskey bar for a food and whiskey pairing. Very generally, good high-end whiskey bars will have a deep calendar of events wherein great chefs will build entire tasting menus around a whiskey flight or two.
The beauty of joining a whiskey and food pairing is that you can expand your palate while also testing what you already have working on your palate. You can find new flavors while linking them to a pour of whiskey in real-time. That means a good pairing is often just as much about revelation as it is about sharpening already existing palate skills.
Naturally, this will depend on where you live. Still, it’s much easier to find a good whiskey bar in 2022 than it was even five years ago. If you’re in Seattle, The Ballard Cut is the place you want to be. Check their calendar here. If you’re in DC, Jack Rose Dining Saloon is the place to expand your palate and test your mettle. Bardstown Bourbon Company in Bardstown, Kentucky offers a great food program next to a wide array of bourbons that touch on old and new. Dead Rabbit in NYC, Delilah’s in Chicago, Seven Grand Austin, the list goes on and on.
PART III — Go To Whisky Shows And Taste Everything You Can
Zach Johnston
One of the other easiest things you can do right now is to go to whiskey events. Consumer events like Whisky Live!, Kentucky Bourbon Festival, and Bourbon & Beyond, to name only a few, are great places to experience whiskey and expand your palate in multiple ways.
Events like Whisky Live! (which had a show in Nashville this summer), are buy-in events where you pay a single fee and then can sample as much whiskey as you can, with a free buffet lunch to boot. Huge brands like Michter’s and Gordon & McPhail bring amazing bottles and simply pour them. The Kentucky Bourbon Festival is the same thing but, naturally, with a bourbon-only focus. These places also have experts there to talk to you, talk about taste, talk about process, and talk about the whiskey world in general, talk about food … talk about life.
It’s a great way to both meet people in the industry, but also get a sense of what’s out there. You can taste and ponder and taste again. The best part is there’s often good local food very nearby as well, which helps you expand your palate in non-liquid ways too.
PART IV — Go To Distilleries And Take Part In Tastings
Zach Johnston
This is probably the most obvious. But almost every distillery that’s open to the public will have a tasting room.
My advice is to start locally. You don’t need to jump on a flight to Scotland or Kentucky to get started. Though that’s always a fun time if you do. Google your local distilleries and book a guided tasting. The distillery pros will help you understand the basic flavor notes in their whiskeys and also what makes them so prominent.
This is also another chance to experience the world around the distillery. What does it smell like when you walk in? What do the trees and bushes around the warehouse smell like? What’s the air like? What do the barrels smell like? All of these things add to the overall experience and you take them with you when you open that whiskey again back at home.
The more distilleries that you experience, the more sensory memories you’ll have. Then when you do make it to Scotland or Ireland or Kentucky, you’ll have a frame of reference. Plus, you’ll be adding in more sensory memories for your palate to experience yet again. The heather of the Scottish Highlands will finally pop on those scotches, the depth of this Kentucky rickhouses will sneak into the nose of your favorite bourbon, and you’ll start to sense the nuances of the place on the palate of your favorite dram in ways you never could have imagined (literally).
It all builds on and on with the more you do.
PART V — Free Your Mind
Zach Johnston
This is probably the most important aspect of building a palate. Besides some real DNA-related taste conundrums like cilantro aversion and super-tasters, you have to open your mind to tasting/experiencing everything you can.
Working in the industry for basically a decade now both behind the bar at very high-end cocktail bars and in the industry as a professional spirits judge, writer, and consultant, I can tell you that the biggest thing that gets in people’s way of experiencing and tasting whiskey (and anything else for that matter) is their own pre-conceived notions.
People have a great tenacity for convincing themselves they don’t like something and will refuse to try it or budge on that point. I’ve seen a lot of people refuse to even try something at all because someone they know didn’t like it one time. It’s baffling and stops you from building your own palate. Yes, this is anecdotal but I taste enough whiskey around enough different people to have seen some version of this over and over again. It’s ridiculous.
That’s not to say everything is great and amazing. My grandfather had an old axiom that I still live by to this day. “Always try everything twice just in case someone fucked it up the first time.” Don’t give up on a taste or smell or flavor profile because it doesn’t make the clouds part and the angels sing the first time you experience it. All of our palates are built upon experiencing and trying things again and again that are “good” and “bad” and “great” and “just fine”. Also, sometimes the quality of one product is just shitty while another version of the same thing will be much better — a very true thing in whiskey. None of this exists in a vacuum.
I know saying “open your mind, man” is very woo-woo. But it’s also science. Palates are trained, built, and expanded, not factory-set for life from birth. If you want to build a whiskey palate like a pro, then you have to go out there and experience the world around you, eat new foods, try new drinks, visit new places, and build that sensory life into your everyday life with an open mind.
Hell, you can start right now by going on a short walk and smelling all the trees and bushes in your yard or neighborhood. It’s that easy to start and it doesn’t cost you a single cent. Best of all, you’ll enjoy things more down the road because of this extra effort!
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