Blind Tasting Lies, Why Our Whole Channel Might Be A Sham, The 3-Tier Whiskey Scam & More...
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Listen to all the feedback and change NOTHING that fundamentally takes you away from this beautifully honest and unique way of adding value to the whiskey community. We LOVE it…
The biggest lies in Whiskey come from the marketing departments most of the time. Truth is in the glass baby!
The fancier the bottle ...
Blind tasting absolutely has its place, and can tell you a lot about a whisky (or other drink). But knowing the background and story, seeing the presentation and knowing the cost all have an affect on the overall experience of drinking it. As does the company you drink it with, what you're doing when you drink, and many other things. You're absolutely right about the story not making a bad product good, but it can make a great product more interesting.
Erin should take a sip of a pour you selected for her, before every card toss. I think it would make a great comedy episode lol 😂
Chocolate goes great with whiskey. The darker, the better.
Here for Erin's card flips ;) Great job on A'ing those Qs you two. Enjoyed this...well done! Cheers!
Respect for people who drive for a living. I commute to work and my blood pressure increases by 20 points during that 30 minute drive 🤣. Couldn't imagine doing it all day.
Thanks for the video!
Re the first Q on blind tastings…I love that you do this. Keeps things honest and removes bias. Makes perfect sense to me. And you also explain it at the beginning of each episode 🤷♂️
I think the only bias might be seeing what's in the glass; the color, maybe how well it coats the glass. That said, I DO NOT want to see black glasses on their table! :) They do so well with lighting and camera work ... the whiskey just dances and swirls beautifully!
@@robmullins agreed!!
Another fun video. On bringing Glen’s to a bar…for me the answer is no. It seems pretentious to me. Even the neighborhood bar I visit occasionally has good whiskey glasses when they do stumble across a good bottle. Not Glen’s, but a narrow rocks like glass that is more than sufficient. I would just feel weird. But then again I used to bring my own pool cue to a bar. So maybe I am worse? 😜
I do think blinds have downsides, but I wouldn't articulate it as "story". It's more the fact that whiskey flavors are complex and nuanced, and if you don't know what you're looking for, or your palette is aligned a certain way that day, you can get really different results from one blind to the next. I absolutely like blinds, but I tend to look for patterns between several blinds, rather than trusting one blind's results.
Your channel is as good and honest as it comes : continue.
The US three tier system sounds like something we could have here in Finland. I mean everything about alcohol is already so restricted over here that some more bureaucracy should absolutely be applied. Please hear the sarcasm in my voice. Greetings from a Bus Driver here 😀
I love your channel even more now. Fellow UPS driver in Bristol TN/VA. Would love to get some NBC whiskey around here sadly can’t get it shipped in state.
What's up my brother in brown!? TN shipping laws are definitely dumb. Sounds like you need a VA mailbox at a UPS Store just across the state line. 😉
A story can mean a lot but flavor over rules every time. Great Q&A video!
The weird part about our senses is that they very quickly adapt, which makes our memory of how something tastes/smells difficult to pin down
I love finding/going to a proper whiskey/craft cocktail bar. They usually always have proper glasssware
Conversation ( even uncomfortable ones ) are very enlightening, informative and entertaining! Props to you for sharing!
Erin ---- disappointed that you didn't start singing Nelly: "Hot in Herre" Cheers!
Y'all missed the point of the first question. He was right about this: your inherent bias will always exist, whether you know it or not, simply because you HAVE HEARD STORIES in the past and they have affected and/or changed you and the way you look at EVERYTHING. I understand that you think being blind in a tasting makes things completely honest. He's pointing out that your honest opinion is still comprised of past experiences causing your biases. We all have bias. How much information you allow (or don't allow) into your bias is maybe what he was getting at. I don't think he meant only marketing bias. Think big picture here. Cheers!
Fair points, however there is a difference between bias and preference, and if you don’t know what you’re drinking then it really is more a matter of preference than bias, right? You need information to show bias, and blinds remove all information.
Good stories mean you are selling a story, not a bourbon. As soon as I hear a “story” I say no thank you. Craft distilleries tell stories, Legacy distilleries do not.
I don't bring my own Glencairn, but I do bring my own L'Arpège Opinel knife to steakhouses.
Stories are interesting, but taste is paramount. Don’t change a thing about the blind tastings! Love what you do 😃
You guys are so much fun!!
Erin slings cards like nobody's business. 😍
2:12 Stories are fun. But they can't make bad whisky good or good whisky better. Tell me the story and I might enjoy it, but make sure the whisky's good or I'll eschew it in the future.
8:47 Thank y'all for putting my question on the air. I really appreciate it - and the answer, too. ❤
17:08 I've gone back and watched my early videos - which weren't that far back 🙂 - and while they *extremely* Thoroughly Amateur™️, they don't embarrass me. They're the best I could do at the time, and at least my preaching experience made talking to the camera dead easy. 🙂
Deb had snacks, various calzones and strombolis, and brownies at our bottle share. They could eat whenever they wanted. Before, after, or during. It was a great experience and after the blind share tasting, I just let everyone try random bottles. It was a great experience!
I never knew the distillery had to buy back their own product!
Yep. It’s a racket!
When we went to a distillery, we found out they had to buy their own product back and their prices were higher than in stores. When I tell people this, they think I'm full of baloney. Although, buffalo trace products were cheap because the store markups are insane!
What about the distilleries that let you fill a bottle start from the barrel. I can't imagine they would have to sell the barrel to the distributor and then buy back. We need some major updates to alcohol laws.
Agree 100% on blinds and you guys have said on more than one occasion that what you like today might be different tomorrow.
Good question on the "fill your own" models. We're not sure what goes on behind the scenes to make that a possibility, and whether or not they have to buy the whole barrel back, but we're sure there is some kind of legal loophole they're exploiting if that isn't the case.
I also love a good whiskey backstory (Uncle Jebediah burned federal courthouses during the War Between the States, then settled down making whiskey...). I also love the Kentucky Derby, but Woodford Reserve Double Oaked finished bitter on the palate. It's all about the taste.
That is a great idea. I hate ordering a good pour and it comes in a rocks glass. Ive asked to have it poured in a wine glass and got a look. LOL
Would you ever consider doing a bourbon hunting video(s); Those are so interesting, especially being from WI, where we don't have the best for selection.
We've been discussing it, but only if we can find a way to make it helpful and informative to viewers. I love the entertainment of Brewzle hunting for allocated bottles a ton, but those videos are entertainment and less helpful for when I walk into my local store to look for something. We believe we have a format for hunting videos that would focus on available product and be exceedingly helpful for viewers, more in the sense of a behind-the-scenes shopping experience rather than just looking for unicorns, so stay tuned.
Bringing your own glen is a great idea. I'm not a fan of buying an expensive pour and getting it in a rocks glass.
I’m not a huge livestream dude (for any channel), but I miss the stuff section on year one-ish videos. Nerdy TV talk was so fun.
…and Josh you are defeating that 4 careers, 20 jobs in a lifetime or whatever stat the youngs are facing. David S.
Would love to hear more about Whiskey in the Word!
It's a small group that I started with a solid group of guys to get together once a month here in Nashville, TN. We bring a bottle we've been enjoying lately and a verse or passage of scripture that's been particularly meaningful for us to the table and share both with the group. I've been tossing around the idea of doing a virtual version of it via Patreon once a month with guys who may be interested as well, but I'm still pondering.
@@stuffandwhiskey That is fantastic. If you end up doing an online version I think that would be fantastic and would be extremely interested.
We have a great store manager that does great picks. He has suggested we bring our own Glens to sample his picks. Works for us.
Perception impacts taste... but that's the reason you do blinds... to intentionally remove that from the equation... so you're not continuing to drink a product that doesn't taste as good to you.
Arguing that removing those variables from the tasting is the wrong way to compare whiskeys just demonstrates a difference in how you want to compare them.
Where blind tastings really suffer is where any side by side comparison would, blind or not... It's not easy... arguably impossible to properly reset or cleanse a palate when drinking whiskeys, especially high proof ones... So every bottle will be influenced by its competition which may wildly influence how you experience the whiskey.
The alternative of tasting whiskeys solo and rating them, as Brewzle and Im sure others do... has its own drawbacks, even if done blind, in that other things such as mood, what you ate, room temperature, and countless other things impact tasting whiskey as well. So it's highly unlikely the same pour would grade the same on multiple occasions... making using scores like that to compare whiskeys less valuable.
Good show....You mentioned music Josh. What do you both listen too? I have a 49 mile one way commute to work and music has been by my side
for 35 years now. Cheers!
We're quite different on the musical tastes front. Our happy medium is bluesy, soulful, folk-inspired rock, but from there Erin goes all pop and I go into a lot of worship, rock (new, classic, Southern, etc), folk/Americana/singer-songwriter, metal, and underground hip hop.
No problem. ❤. I meant to say your barrel picks.
Hard to beat the NBCs but we’ve been so fortunate to pick so many great barrels. Feels like a blind bracket may be in order!
If you ever come visit Annapolis MD, visit Dry 85, they serve you in a Glen Carin
Thank you, Erin!
Wooo I'm not a weridO... 😂😂, most reactions I get are "WTF is that" with a bit of side eye, or the bartender is very interested in why I bring my own Glen then its a conversation starter. or I get the "You God Dam Alcoholic WeridO" look... but Josh you 100% right I'm not paying top dollar and not enjoying it the way I want to prices here are ridiculous.... I've tried champagne flutes wine glasses etc but nothing taste and feels like a Glen.. Now I can tell my wife I'm a pro not a weridO.. 😂😂😂 and yes watching from Australia 🇦🇺. Thanks Guys much appreciated. Dram on Guys Dram on 🥃🥰🥃
erin, i bet you never get this question, but my wife is a yarn harlot and is knitting all the time, I am her consummate winder. what type of yarn do you like and what do you knit
Your wife sounds like a woman after my own heart. ☺️ I love knitting with animal-based yarns as opposed to plant based yarns. (i.e. wool instead of cotton) and I love knitting garments! Especially sweaters and cardigans!! What does your wife prefer?
@@stuffandwhiskey same, she loves alpaca, sheep, blue sky and rowan, she is also knitting sweaters, cardigans and hats just a little smaller for the grandbaby
Thanks for answering my question. And Erin your great and don't worry about not getting the name I was a cook and I have a food fetish. And whiskey can and does have many umami characteristics of its good. I drove a dump truck before I had to get out of the business due to health issues. Great show as always..
Keep up the good work guys! I agree 100% with your first answer.
Salty snacks can mess your palate up, salt can scratch the roof of your mouth.
Cheers! Also from a land down underrrr!
Unfortunately down here if you pulled out your own Glen at a bar I reckon there’d be some that would say “wanker” under their breath. Not me though. Some of the glassware I’ve had in bars/restaurants for a decent pour of whiskey has been a joke. Reckon I might start brining my own too!
U Ma Me! Too good 😂
Speaking of drinking whiskey at bars/restaurants, is it common practice to charge more for a neat pour? I rarely order bourbon at restaurants because of the price but at a higher end restaurant I was charged $2 more than menu price and the server said it was because I ordered it neat. Not a big deal, I didn’t complain but I hadn’t seen it before.
We've never heard of that. Would be curious to their reasoning. You'd hope you're getting more whiskey that way vs. them simply charging you more since ice isn't going to make it go as far and they're penny pinching.
You mami was the best! 🤣
You know you've made it when you're getting comments from J.H. Christ. Well done and congrats! 😇😁
😂 😂
I'm sure if I went back and looked at videos of me 3 years ago I would not be able to watch them. Of course I don't show up in videos very often. So when you said that I paused this video and went back to look at one of your videos from 3 years ago. I didn't detect much difference, maybe just a tiny bit, so I can watch the older videos without any hint of apprehension.
Ever drink a whiskey you honestly didn't like .... BUT then add a drop or two of water and suddenly really like it or even love it?
That's a great question! We've never had one turn around completely like that, and often adding water tends to make it different (at best) or degrade how much we like it (more often than not), which is why we don't usually add water. There have been some times where we get a bottle that's not great, like some ECBP barrel picks, where we actually add a fair bit of water to bring the proof way down to around 100 proof, and then those can get pretty good.
When I evaluate a whiskey, I have 10 items I look at for a total of 100 points. However, taste is worth 25 points, history is 5 points, bottle/label/marketing is 5 points, composition of the whiskey is 15, etc. I do buy some whiskeys specifically because of the bottle/label/marketing or history, but if it is lousy tasting I won't get a 2nd bottle.
I like to be disagreeable lol.
Blinds can lie, because if you do a palate warm up, it can affect tasting notes, and whatever it's being compared to can change perception, and your palate varies.
Blinds are awesome, but I think they are most useful when trying 1 by itself, or picking out the differences of different batches of the same known whiskey and trying to figure what is what.
Anyway I do like blinds.
One thing I would love to see would be rating your barrel picks, without knowing it's a barrel pick.
Thanks
Regarding barrel picks, we have thrown our barrel picks into blind tastings on the channel in the past, but it really feels like a lose-lose. They've rated VERY high for us, which makes sense as we picked them because they fit our palates, but critics in the comments can't help but feel like we're rigging the system when that happens.
Tangents and Whiskey has a nice ring to it...
Josh you should do some watch and whiskey pairings! 😀
That would be a blast!
Responding to your reaction to bars being to many people and loud, be thankful that today the amount of secondhand smoke is either non-existent or minuscule compared to the 1970s when I was going to bars. Back then every hour in a crowded bar (with 95% of the people chain smoking) breathing in the heavy secondhand smoke was likely to smoking two cigarettes per hour.
Spot on! We definitely like to avoid secondhand smoke if at all possible, and likely wouldn't have lasted long in bars back in the day. We caught the very tail end of it before it got nixed and a burning throat, burning eyes, and clothes that reeked were never our favorite.
Great episode!
Whiskey "stories" are so overplayed. For me they don't add to the drinking experience. Blinds remove bias and the whiskey can speak for itself.
Preach!
Taste first, story second.
I think I need to change my name to some off the wall Shamma-langah-ding-dong kinda name now🤣🤣🤣⚘️🥃
😂😂
Best card flipper in the Biz !!
J H Christ, really? Fun video, thanks.
The real question is, what is your CB radio name?
That's a good story for a livestream! 😉
Josh, has anyone ever told you that you look a bit like Andrew Lincoln from "The Walking Dead"?
Haha, oh yeah, it's been mentioned a time or two!
Josh just wondered what your smoking/cooking and bourbons you drink with different meats
Great question. Usually I don't drink bourbon with meals, and save it for dessert instead. The big exception here is pork barbeque. Pulled pork or ribs and bourbon go great together IMO!
I think you can learn different things from a non-blind tasting and a blind tasting. Non-blind you can look for things that you might expect to be there and help to train your palate. However, blind tastings do not lie and ultimately reveal a whiskey's potential shortcomings and might save your wallet a few bucks. I don't understand the hate on blind flights.
Facts! 💯
Blinds feel extremely subjective in its own right because when it’s all said and done everyone has a different palate preference and what you loved today you may not be hot on 6 months from now. Or something everybody loves you may hate or vice versa. Just enjoy the bottles you know you enjoy and try to get pours of stuff when you have the opportunity.
Why did you stop doing the Stuff section? Viewership would drop way off for that?
Partially viewership, and partially because we kept running out of specific stuff to talk about. Forcing the "stuff" section felt, well, forced. Letting random things come up in tangents feels much more organic to how we normally operate and to the overall goals of the channel--which is to feel like you're sitting down and sharing pours and conversations with friends.
I have a friend who is works for UPS as a software developer
As a retired electrical worker in an organized labor group, I tend to patronize products from entities who employ a organized labor force to the best of my knowledge. The bulk of the bourbon are from companies utilizing organized labor. Needless to say, I'm no longer looking for employment, but knowing that there are still younger electrical workers who will be able to make a decent living, and also contribute to the same retirement system that is providing for me now, it's worth it to me to patronize these entities. I understand that you blind taste many different offerings, however, when you enjoy a poor for yourself, do you consider the entities that utilize either UPS or other organized labor groups?
Great question! For us, we tend to simply default to taste, but if the taste is there *and* there are other factors that amplify the experience beyond that, then that's just icing on the cake in our book!
peanut butter pretzel nuggets 😉
my favorite bourbon is Johny Walker Red Label.. WHAAAA?????? It cheap, widely available, great blend and easy sipper. or what all Bourbon drinkers want.. and its not hyped up to crazy markups train of marketing poop... but its not a bourbon.
Did Josh say 'whiskey and the Word"? at 13:47? As in the Bible? If that's what he said, I live in the wrong state and would love to read some literature about your organization.
Yep, you heard correctly. It's a small group that I started with a solid group of guys to get together once a month here in Nashville, TN. We bring a bottle we've been enjoying lately and a verse or passage of scripture that's been particularly meaningful for us to the table to share both with the group. I've been tossing around the idea of doing a virtual version of it via Patreon once a month with guys who may be interested as well, but I'm still pondering.
@@stuffandwhiskey Don't think I could get away with having whiskey and the Word in the same setting where I live, even though Maryland is the birthplace of rye and some of bourbon's founding fathers, i.e., Basil Hayden, et. al. Godspeed to your 'ministry'.
Whoa! That is the most click bait ish youtube title I've seen today! Try not to gasp! lol
Clickbait? Did we not address each and every point?
Salted caramels
Well, if you do sit on a throne of lies, be sure you don't also smell like beef and cheese! 😅
Hi!
Howdy! Thanks for the comment and the discussion it sparked!
WHISKEY CHEERS 😎
I disagree; for me, it is about the experience. I appreciate your show is about the taste alone but my bourbon journey includes the story and many other factors. Also, I feel blinds can be flawed by what your palet is the day that you do the blind.
That’s why you follow a good pre-blind protocol like standardized meals and a known warm-up pour to ensure your palate isn’t out of whack. We do this prior to every blind tasting, and if our palate is off, we don’t record the tasting. 😉
The blind review is the only true evaluation. Knowing that a bottle has an interesting back story, serves as a placebo and fools you into thinking it’s better than it is. Keep with your blind tasting formula as it is and let this dude go elsewhere for his reviews.
I know I've commented about this before...pertaining to the first question: I think it may have been worded poorly. What matters isn't some kind of made up marketing story, rather the provenance/process of that whiskey. For example, imagine if somebody gave you a pie, and you saved it for an after meal dessert, thinking it was a sweet fruit pie. However, taking one bite, you realize it's a savory meat pie. This could very easily throw you for a loop and ruin the experience. If you had known, you would have known how/when to eat it, and that would have made all the difference in the world. This is what I mean when I say context matters.
When I'm drinking a whiskey, I want to know as much relevant details as possible. Is it non-chill filtered? If it's a Scotch, is it natural color? What kind of condensers does the distillery use? What barrels were they aged in? There are so many parameters that go into the final results, knowing it gives me a better idea of how to approach it. If I'm drinking a 10 year old single barrel single malt scotch, I'm likely going to want to add a fair amount of water. If I just cracked open this bottle, I am not going to judge it the same way as I will when it's a third of the way down. If it's peated, then I will approach it differently than if it's not peated and finished in a port barrel.
The more something is different, the less productive the blind process tends to be. It works fairly well if you're just comparing straight Kentucky Bourbons, however, it is much harder and less useful with single malt Scotch. The blind lineup itself needs to be more purposefully choreographed in that situation. Depending on what I'm trying to learn about it, perhaps I need some information, but not all of the information. I may want to know just the proof, but nothing else, or just the age, but nothing else. If I know the whiskey I'm drinking is 125 proof, then I can prepare to add water, or warm my palate up to that proof. If I know I'm drinking a 25 year old Scotch, I'm going to let it open up in the glass much longer, say 30~45 minutes, and even an hour. I'm going to want to taste it much more slowly, to experience that development in the glass. If it's 10 years old, 43% ABV, and chill filtered, then I'm not going to feel any reservation about jumping in without a lot of preparation. Some whiskies are easier to access, and some require a bit more work.
This is what I mean when I say blind lineups have limitations. We don't drink every whisky the same way(adding water, opening up, context, etc.), and having the vital information about what's in the glass helps me to approach it properly. I could not care less about some made up brand name and how it's associated with Al-Capone's nephew, or how it's named after some famous horse. That kind of marketing fluff is absolutely irrelevant to the quality of what's inside the bottle. Personally, I despise marketing fluff. It's mostly just creative lying. Also, yes, blinds do sometimes lie, for all of the reasons I mentioned above. When I'm curating a blind lineup for someone else(which I do sometimes), I'm very deliberately trying to present it in a way that doesn't squash the potential of that whisky. When you have no information about it or no clue on how to drink something, you can really mess it up. I've seen it happen many times.
These are very fair points all around Paul. That said, we still fall back to the taste of what's in the glass. For us, regardless of how the whiskey was made or the age, filtering (or lack thereof), etc, we feel as though we're usually pretty capable of using the first sip to get a barometer for what type of whiskey is in the glass, and then using subsequent sips to evaluate what we're experiencing based on that **with our own personal preferences taken into account as well** (which matters to us).
If anything, we'd wager than letting your palate be the barometer for what you're drinking **specifically within the context of an evaluative tasting** is far better than knowing any information that may bias you in one direction or another.
Now if you're just sipping casually to enjoy and explore the pour, that's where all of that information you mentioned can actually enhance the experience, and we agree 100% with you.
It's all a matter of context and intent. We do the channel the way we do specifically to evaluate pours individually or in comparison to each other, and the one constant is our own palate preferences. Viewers can key in on that, learn what we like and don't, and as a result our opinions on pours becomes that much more helpful for folks. Additional information only clouds and biases those opinions.
In our personal time off the channel, we don't always taste blind, and there are plenty of times where enjoying a pour for what it is and what we know about it is absolutely the way to go. Truth be told, it's likely the way most folks enjoy their whiskey, so you could say that your approach is better than ours for sure (or at least more indicative of most whiskey drinkers on a day to day basis), but that doesn't discount how helpful blinds are at removing the bias and drilling down to one's own personal palate preferences.
✌️✌️✌️