The heavy, square tumbler you see in every whisky advert is a terrible glass for tasting whisky. If you care about flavour, swap it for a Glencairn. Six pounds. Best return on investment in the whole hobby.
Dramfly
1 min read
Tasting culture
Blame the movies
The hero walks into a bar. Orders a Scotch. Gets a heavy, square glass with straight sides. Ice clinks. He looks cool. He also can't smell anything.
If you're drinking whisky for effect, to feel like James Bond or Don Draper, use whatever glass you want. But if you're drinking for flavour, the tumbler is quietly sabotaging you.
The problem with tumblers
Tumblers have wide, open rims. That design lets the delicate aromas, the ones you actually paid for, escape straight into the room. By the time you lift the glass, most of the whisky you paid for is gone into the air around your shoulder.
It's like listening to your favourite album on laptop speakers. You get the gist, but you lose the bass, the highs, the detail. The whisky smells like booze instead of vanilla, smoke, and apple.
The glass we carry at festivals
If you see us at a whisky festival, we'll be holding a funny looking tulip shaped glass. That's the Glencairn. It was designed in Scotland in 2001, by whisky people, for whisky people, and it works for one simple reason. The shape does the work for you.
The bowl at the bottom is wide. It lets the whisky breathe and release aromas.
The neck in the middle tapers. It concentrates those aromas.
The rim at the top is narrow. It funnels the smell straight to your nose.
The result is that you suddenly smell vanilla and green apple instead of just alcohol. Same whisky in a different glass it’s a different experience. It's like switching from laptop speakers to proper headphones.
The test
You don't have to take our word for it but give it a try:
Pour the same whisky into a tumbler and a Glencairn.
Nose them both. Don't taste yet.
Notice the difference.
In the Glencairn you'll smell distinct notes but in the tumbler you'll mostly smell alcohol.
What you actually need
You need a glass that doesn't let half the aroma escape before you lift it to your nose.
If you're spending sixty pounds on a bottle, spending six pounds on a Glencairn is the single highest value upgrade in whisky. Most good whisky shops sell them for around five quid.
One more thing
When you're at your next festival, look for the Glencairn. It's the tulip shape everyone is holding. There's a reason they all chose the same glass. Now you know it.
Pour one tonight, the way it was meant to be drunk, and log what you actually taste. That is where Dramfly comes in.
