The first time I ever had whisky, I hated it.

I was at a pub called the Alum Ale House in South Shields, and I had ordered a boilermaker–a big pint of beer with a little glass of whisky in the side. Whisky in one hand, pint in the other, I sat down at a round wooden table in one of the back rooms of the pub with my 3 companions, and bravely took a sip of the whisky. It was vaporous, bitter, harsh, and unpleasant, ranking somewhere close to the time I accidentally sipped expired milk in the worst taste experiences up to that point in my life.

I was a little shy of my 19th birthday, on the first of several trips to Europe with my mother. We were working for two weeks as volunteers on a Roman archaeological site–Arbeia Roman Fort–in northeastern England. My companions at the Alum Ale House were fellow volunteers–Americans Alex and Ada, who were both about my age and part of the same Earthwatch team my mother and I were part of, and a middle-aged Englishman named Andrew, another volunteer unaffiliated with Earthwatch.

The whisky in question was a generic blended Scotch–at the time, I wouldn’t have known one from another–that came from one of the “well” bottles above the bar. It tasted awful by itself, and when I attempted to drown it by gulping my beer after each sip, it just made the beer taste bad, too. Complaining bitterly the entire time to my unsympathetic companions (Andrew called my drink choice “instant brain damage”), I did eventually manage to finish my first dram. 

I seem to recall swearing that I would never touch whisky–or perhaps even spirits–again.

But for some odd reason, rather than holding to that hastily made promise, I started regularly ordering whisky, albeit on the rocks rather than neat. I always ordered blended whisky, and in fact, I always ordered exactly the same blended whisky: The Famous Grouse, I think mostly because of its ready availability and the colorful bird on the label.

With ice cooling and diluting the harsh spirit, I was quickly able to find flavor to appreciate. It wasn’t long before I foreswore ice, and rededicated myself to the unadulterated spirit, and while I continued to mostly drink beer, a dram of Famous Grouse neat became my go-to nightcap and the qualities I had initially deplored in my first ever taste of spirits–the vaporous quality, the harshness, the overpowering flavors–became things I learned to appreciate and prize. 

When our two weeks at Arbeia were up, my mother, on a whim, decided we should take the train north into Scotland, all the way up to Inverness. And so, after passing through Edinburgh and Stirling and the endlessly scenic landscapes of Perthshire and the Cairngorms, we arrived at the capital of the Highlands. The next day, on a further whim, we rented a beige Mercedes sedan from a Hertz agency at the train station, and continued northward along the A9, over the Moray Firth and the Cromarty Firth, past the distilling towns of Alness and Tain, past the Clynelish distillery, past Wick, and all the way to John O’ Groats, where we saw puffins nesting on the rocky cliffs overlooking the Pentland Firth, finally ending up–quite late at night–in Thurso (or rather the nearby fishing hamlet of Scrabster). 

The next day, we drove westwards along the north coast, stopping for the evening in the tiny village of Tongue, at the eponymous hotel there. 

By this point, I was beginning to feel very Scottish indeed–astounded by the stunning landscapes, and newly in love with the country’s national drink, I was anxious to try every Scottish thing I could. In that spirit, at the hotel restaurant, I ordered haggis for dinner and requested a local whisky to accompany it. At the time, I had some vague sense that almost every Scottish town had its own distillery.

They served me Old Pulteney. Not exactly local to Tongue, but in the late 90s and early 00s, it would have certainly been the closest mainland distillery, and possibly nearer than the Orkney distilleries, as well. 

And reader, I loved it.

I don’t know what specific bottling it was, although I’ve come to suspect that it was probably one of the old Gordon & MacPhail’s bottlings, but I thought it was magnificent. Less than a month after the inauspicious start to my whisky journey at the Alum Ale house, I had a new favorite drink: single malt Scotch whisky.

Through the rest of our time in Scotland–another week or so, meandering down the isolated northwest coast to Fort William, crossing back to Inverness, and finally, spending several days in Edinburgh–I continued to order single malts every evening, trying and becoming fascinated by a dizzying array of names, regions and flavors. Even back across the border in England, I regularly ordered whisky, although I went back to Famous Grouse sometimes, and somewhere along the way, I picked up a fondness for Isle of Skye, which I mistook for a single malt. 

I understood little about how whisky was made, or what distinguished single malt whisky from blended whisky, or which distillery was where, or even which brand names referred to a distillery–as in my mistake regarding the Isle of Skye brand!–but I knew I liked whisky, and that I liked single malt better than I liked most of the blends I tasted.

Returning home to the States put my journey of whisky discovery on hold, since I wasn’t legally of age in my home country. But, I immediately picked up where I’d left off on a second extensive European sojourn the following year. Every chance I could I ordered single malt, and I relished every opportunity to sample new whiskies.

By the time I started university, I already had a couple of bottles I’d brought in from Europe (including, of course, some Old Pulteney). When I turned 21 part way through my freshman year, one of the very first things I did was buy a bottle of Talisker 10 year old for $50–which at the time seemed like a princely sum. During college, I tasted whiskies when I had the opportunity, and I often kept 3-5 bottles of single malt around, but most of my drinking energies were focused on getting drunk rather than savoring things.

My whisky journey resumed in earnest when I was in my later 20s and starting graduate school. With the help greater stability, less emphasis on getting drunk, and a generous and supportive girlfriend (now wife!), I was finally able to begin building a collection. As I slowly began acquiring bottles faster than I drank them, I also began acquiring books and learning more about how whisky is made, what distinguishes different types of whisky, and the different distilling regions and malt distilleries of Scotland.

I also, for the first time, began writing tasting notes. 

Initially, tasting notes were a way for me to keep better track of different whiskies I tried, and also to decide whether a whisky I tasted was interesting enough to warrant buying a full bottle. Before long, I found several things. First, focusing on parsing flavors in whisky actually enhanced my enjoyment of it. The more attention I gave whisky, the more I found I got out of it. Second, I soon found myself wanting increasingly exotic bottles precisely in order that I might write tasting notes on their contents!

As I write this, I’ve been drinking single malt Scotch for more than 23 years. I currently have 172 bottles of single malt Scotch whisky, from every Scottish distilling region ranging from 3 to 42 years old, from distilleries that started only a few years ago, and those that have been closed since I was a toddler. I’ve been collecting seriously for more than 15 years, and writing about whisky for nearly as long. Even after years of tasting, learning, and collecting, I continue to be amazed by the richness of the whisky world–new flavors, intriguing twists on familiar flavors, and I find that there is almost always something more to learn about whisky. I hope that anyone visiting this site will enjoy their time here, and perhaps find a little whisky knowledge to add to their own!

Slainte!