FASE 3
AFTER THE TASTING
Done, we have taken our first sip of the tasted spirit. Let us immediately evaluate the experience: did we like it? Was it negative? Which virtues and flaws did we identify? Our evaluation is based on the sensations we experienced and on our senses, and the best way to improve our knowledge is of course experience, as well as comparing one product with the others. Experience means enlarging tasting vocabulary, thus search for new spirits to test, as well as the creation of a personal history which can be a great tool to best analyze the products we decide to taste.
We can try having a less subjective tasting by posing specific care on some particular aspects:
- nose: perfumes, not fully pleasant smells, alcoholic intensity, perfumes intensity, evolution in time, different aromas integration, was the product multi-faceted (few or many aromas?).
- palate: first sensations pervading the mouth (intense/light), alcoholic intensity, alcohol and aromas integration, tastes and aromas (how many and which ones), evolution in mouth sensations.
- finish: persistency (duration of the sensation), sensations (which ones and how many different ones).
Later on we can create a tasting note of the product: which component is in our view the best one? Is the product well balanced, which means are the different components well integrated or are they split and separated? How was the global alcoholic impact? A further element is represented by discussion, in the case we are tasting with others. We can also verify on websites, books and newspapers if our sensations are shared by other tasters. If we are sampling more than one product, let us try to create a personal ranking based on the here above described criteria: which product we enjoyed the most and why? We could also try to assign marks, using letters or numbers: this is however a complex task, a topic we are going to deeply approach at a later stage.