The Lingua Franca of Booze is Inherently Nebulous
June 20, 2021 10:38 AM   Subscribe

The term “smooth” effectively erases any point of reference. Even as an adjective, “smooth” functions as a verb: It is the buffing out of character, the sanding down of the distinctions that make great spirits great. In the quest to triangulate the specific qualities of a spirit, “smooth” instead forms a binary of acceptability. It is a value judgment on whether or not one finds the spirit drinkable, one that can easily be impressed upon an unwitting consumer. This is exactly why the term is so ubiquitous in the marketplace, and—for decades, if not centuries—a red flag among connoisseurs. From Let’s Talk About “Smooth” by Danny Chau
posted by chavenet (104 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
What a relief to find a story about booze instead of, y'know.
posted by box at 10:48 AM on June 20, 2021 [10 favorites]


The positive connotation of "smooth" is pretty obvious if you're acquainted with bottom shelf brands fairly describable as "rough".
posted by paper chromatographologist at 10:49 AM on June 20, 2021 [52 favorites]


The positive connotation of "smooth" is pretty obvious if you're acquainted with bottom shelf brands fairly describable as "rough".

My sentiment exactly. "Smooth" to me implies "drinkable" in opposition to "scours your throat like industrial cleaner".
posted by fiercekitten at 11:11 AM on June 20, 2021 [21 favorites]


Of course we have all seen that bar scene when a guy drinks a shot and coughs and chokes for a bit. Then he says, Smooth!
posted by Splunge at 11:18 AM on June 20, 2021 [8 favorites]


“The man who remarks, ‘Pretty smooth,’ after gulping down three glasses of a fine Scotch is simply a wallflower,” wrote an editor of the 1940 Consumers Union’s Wines and Liquors report, one of the earliest guides of its kind in the United States, published less than a decade after the end of Prohibition.

In that context, it may just have been shorthand for, "Well, I'm glad that I don't have to worry about methanol in my Scotch any more."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:19 AM on June 20, 2021 [17 favorites]


Smooth means, "Does not drink like a mouthful of horseradish."
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:20 AM on June 20, 2021 [13 favorites]


I think that’s kind of the point? This guy deals in very high end liquor, everything he sells should easily pass the bar of “drinkable”. What he’s saying is that if that’s your only comment on what’s in your glass you aren’t the kind of connoisseur he’s targeting.
posted by cali at 11:29 AM on June 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


I enjoy good spirits but there is a snobbery visible in this article that I don't like in myself and that pang of recognition is uncomfortable. People like what they like. While I may have spent a lot of time and money getting acquainted with esoteric tasting notes, "upset at the waste of life" is a sentiment I hope I never express for someone who hasn't sought those experiences the way I have.

On the other hand I went to a Cognac tasting event at the French Embassy a few years ago, and when it got to (a tiny sample of) the rarified stuff above $1000 a bottle, I found myself really bored. I could never justify paying those prices just to get a primary tasting note of "smooth." I mean, the "oh wow, that's really good" sweet spot for me was only $500 a bottle, but I don't think I could ever justify that either.
posted by fedward at 11:31 AM on June 20, 2021 [21 favorites]


I suppose if your job is to write about liquor, pointing out that "smooth" is exactly as silly, irrelevant, and arrogant a form of navel-gazing as any text ever published about liquor is a dangerous choice.

I look for the opposite of what most people call smooth. I also can't possibly imagine being offended that someone else uses the word to describe things they like. Surely life is bigger and more interesting. If we're going to rag on people for drink opinions, it's thirty pages down on my list of things I personally find distasteful. Most liquor is shit. Most cocktails are shit. Most wine is shit. Most beer is shit. I've a lot more in common with a smooth whisky lover than a piña colada lover, any day, though I wish them both all the happiness in the world. "Why the fuck do you care," seems like the obvious response.

(To be clear, I'm happy to have read this and celebrate it as a fun thing one can argue about without consequence. Thanks for posting it.)
posted by eotvos at 11:33 AM on June 20, 2021 [8 favorites]


I would have said that "smooth" is that quality that distinguishes, say, the taste of Ketel One vodka from the taste of Aristocrat. But then, would that difference appear in a blind taste test? Aristocrat featured in drinks that tasted awful and in hangovers, but is that simply because when I drank Aristocrat, I was young and/or making bad choices about how much to drink and how to drink it?

If pressed to define it further, I would say that smoothness was a balance of flavor, the taste of well-blended ingredients as opposed to one alone or two slapped together.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:34 AM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


To be fair to the marketing team, the focus group did pick "smooth" over other terms like "hooch" and "rotgut". Go with the experts, I say.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:41 AM on June 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


In the quest to triangulate the specific qualities of a spirit, “smooth” instead forms a binary of acceptability. It is a value judgment on whether or not one finds the spirit drinkable, one that can easily be impressed upon an unwitting consumer. This is exactly why the term is so ubiquitous in the marketplace, and—for decades, if not centuries—a red flag among connoisseurs.

Counterpoint: Not all people who enjoy liquor (or food, or art) have received training in the technical vocabulary that so-called "connoisseurs" use to describe their experiences to one another.

It's like making fun of someone who sees Guernica in person and cries, then comments that the work is "really big." Yes, Guernica's size is its most superficial fact, and hearing it described as such does not guide you, the listener, into the interior of that viewer's experience. But maybe the fact that the viewer was moved to tears should be your clue that they've had a powerful experience, regardless of whether they can describe the work's features in the language of art history.
posted by belarius at 11:41 AM on June 20, 2021 [49 favorites]


I've seen that high-end Polish and Russian vodka, and high-end Jamaican rum have this "rare" property where the usual tastes are almost completely erased. I strive for that myself in some ways, to be The Man Without Qualities.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:49 AM on June 20, 2021 [8 favorites]


I can't read this article, the recollection of a nasally voice saying this to me while mansplaining a glass of hooch is just too strong
posted by lemur at 11:56 AM on June 20, 2021 [23 favorites]


TLDR:

Kids in the Hall
posted by Max Power at 12:00 PM on June 20, 2021 [11 favorites]


I am going to write “smooth” in quotes from now on no matter the context. This article broke my brain.
posted by mmcg at 12:04 PM on June 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


So it seems that booze discourse is where rock discourse was between 1967 and whenever hipsters started getting really into Fleetwood Mac and Hall & Oates, where smoothness is the opposite of authenticity?
posted by acb at 12:09 PM on June 20, 2021 [6 favorites]


What annoying snobbery. So freaking what.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 12:30 PM on June 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


Smooth in sherry seems to mean higher in vicosity as in creamy as opposed to runny.
posted by y2karl at 12:31 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


If pressed to define it further, I would say that smoothness was a balance of flavor, the taste of well-blended ingredients as opposed to one alone or two slapped together.

Agreed. Rarely drink. Rarely drank or drink scotch. Had a glass at friends several years ago. It was noticeably different and surprising. To me, it did taste "smooth" and "even" and noticeably marked that specific moment. The voice is there when on has a good glass of "something" I had a similar experience with a bottle of wine in 1996. A cocktail in New Orleans in 2008. i didn't have to be an expert to know that this was something special.

To me, a good drink, a good dinner...a good anything is like a good relationship. One feels met.
posted by goalyeehah at 12:38 PM on June 20, 2021 [7 favorites]


I'm not sure I see the problem with the article, really. It's just arguing that people have been sold the idea that "smoothness" is the prime indicator of quality in alcohol. Which is kind of like judging the quality of bread by its softness, rather than, say, the structure of the crumb or the caramelisation of the crust. The latter could be seen as snobbery, but isn't it just that some people like to obsess over minutiae? If that's not for you, no worries. But if you're someone who like to have conversations about the experience of drinking good alcohol, then this article may be pertinent to your interests. If you're someone who drinks as a social lubricant or whatever, then "smooth" may suit you just fine. But Danny Chau probably won't be interested in having a conversation with you about it, because what really is there to discuss?
posted by pipeski at 12:44 PM on June 20, 2021 [12 favorites]


haha Max Power one of my fav TKITH sketches ever!
posted by supermedusa at 12:49 PM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


The overwrought style of writing in this piece perfectly matches the snobbery on parade.
posted by mikeand1 at 1:10 PM on June 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


I'm not sure I see the problem with the article, really.

The problem with the article, in my opinion, is that it dunks on "smoothness" without providing any other examples of how one might want to describe alcohol. First paragraph waxes lyrical about microbiota and cider apple varieties, second paragraph bridges into "smooth" is a "waste of life" (yikes) and it doesn't ever recover from there. The contempt just drips off the page, and I think that's what some -- or least what I -- react to as snobbery.

belarius's point about technical vocabulary is a good one. "Smooth" is a vague and somewhat meaningless descriptor, sure. But the writer doesn't point out other ways to talk about alcohol -- tannins, sweetness/dryness, body. It's just "ugh, don't you hate it when you spend all this time upselling a story about the alchemists along the River Charente, and turns out you just wasted your life on some cretin who can only say "smooth."" If that's how you feel about your customers, you're not as good a communicator/"storyteller" as you think you are.

Contrast this guy, who both knows his stuff AND presents it to us plebs in an accessible way.
posted by basalganglia at 1:18 PM on June 20, 2021 [14 favorites]


Next time, just say "that tastes like some hooch from Lawrenceburg, Indiana that's spent time in a recycled wooden container and may contain flavoring agents" and more often than not you'll be right.

To paraphrase Dave Barry, I generally just drink it, then look around for more.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:22 PM on June 20, 2021 [10 favorites]


Drinking Tres Generacion Anejo compared to bulk Trader Joe's Tequila...

One is "smooth", one is not...

One is enjoyable, one is tolerable.
posted by Windopaene at 1:23 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


"Smooth" is most often associated with straight liquor. Decades ago I worked at an exceedingly well-stocked bar. My quest was to find a bourbon that tasted like what I thought bourbon should taste like. We had well over a dozen brands on the shelf (forget the junk in the well). So on a slow night I ran a little contest. The previous winner versus the next brand in line. Just a tiny splash in an old fashion glass (I was working after all). No ice. No mix. Check for aroma and then a tiny sip. Of course they all burned, but one stood out as a clear winner. It's been over forty years so things may have changed, but the winner was extremely old-school: Old Grand-Dad Bottled in Bond, 100 proof. You can tip me later...
posted by jim in austin at 1:27 PM on June 20, 2021 [20 favorites]


IME, "smooth" is actually well correlated with the quality of a whisky, if you take into account the proof. A cheap 80-proof whisky is often harsh on your throat, and a high-quality 100-proof whisky will usually down with much less discomfort. The latter will also taste better and show more complexity, but I personally have a harder time enjoying those qualities if my throat is burning.
posted by mikeand1 at 1:34 PM on June 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


High-end booze....I'm sure it's a fun hobby but there is a limit to how good it can even be, it's a glass of alcohol, t's not going to give you x-ray vision or something even if it costs $50 for a shot.
posted by thelonius at 1:34 PM on June 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


This makes me want to go to one of his events, take a gulp, and go "[Phil Hartman]DaaaaaAAAAAAAAMN![/Phil Hartman]"
posted by praemunire at 1:41 PM on June 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


"there is a limit to how good it can even be"

Yeah, I sprung for a few shots of some very expensive Pappy Van Winkle 20-year bourbon once, and I wasn't as blown away as the price and the hype suggested.
posted by mikeand1 at 1:43 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


It's been over forty years so things may have changed, but the winner was extremely old-school: Old Grand-Dad Bottled in Bond, 100 proof.

I was toddler 40 years ago so I didn't taste it then, but this is still a very good whisky.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:51 PM on June 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


In a single October issue of Time from 1955, at least 20 ads dropped the word “smooth”: in reference to Jack Daniel’s famously charcoal-filtered Tennessee whiskey

Jack Daniels is a whiskey that I buy and drink regularly, but "smooth" is never a word I've associated with it.

My own research across my lifetime tells me my lingua franca of booze is "Aaaarah, aarahaha... Aaaahaha tranima?" *vomit*
posted by hippybear at 1:52 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


I was toddler 40 years ago so I didn't taste it then

Lightweight!
posted by thelonius at 1:55 PM on June 20, 2021 [9 favorites]


Every toddler knows a little whiskey on the gums helps with teething pain!
posted by hippybear at 1:58 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


Old Grand-Dad Bottled in Bond, 100 proof.

Or Old Grand-Gag, as we used to call it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:01 PM on June 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


Old Grand-Dad Bottled in Bond, 100 proof. You can tip me later...

I’m partial to Evan Williams Bottled in Bond myself, but they are both great whiskey for the money.
posted by TedW at 2:22 PM on June 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


This article felt incomplete to me, or my browser cut it off halfway.
posted by muddgirl at 3:36 PM on June 20, 2021 [9 favorites]


Boy is this a fun commentary. I do have an incidental contribution to the subject matter.

Tended my dadʻs Paterson NJ neighborhood tavern in my younger post-college days. Most sophisticated hard liquor he dispensed was Jack Danielʻs, which was rarely ordered as it cost 80¢ per shot vs the 60¢ array of all other brands.

There was no patron-wide consensus about which was the best of these more thrifty options: each brand had its own imbiber-advocate, and the barstool controversy sometimes centered around the varied degrees of smoothness. (To me, like the beer of the time, they all tasted remarkably similar, barely palatable, not even slightly approaching "smooth" -- but of course that didnʻt stop the discussion.)

What did seem remarkable to me was that in the adjacent barber shop, the array of hair tonics practically matched, bottle-for-bottle, the array of whiskeys lined up in back of the bar.
posted by Droll Lord at 3:41 PM on June 20, 2021 [9 favorites]


This thread is very fruit forward.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:42 PM on June 20, 2021 [9 favorites]


I haven't read the article, but these are the vibes I'm getting:

Most first-time drinkers of Jeppson Malört reject our liquor. Its strong, sharp taste is not for everyone. Our liquor is rugged and unrelenting (even brutal) to the palate. During almost 60 years of American distribution, we found only 1 out of 49 men will drink Jeppson Malört. During the lifetime of our founder, Carl Jeppson was apt to say, 'My Malört is produced for that unique group of drinkers who disdain light flavor or neutral spirits.' It is not possible to forget our two-fisted liquor. The taste just lingers and lasts – seemingly forever. The first shot is hard to swallow! Perservere. Make it past two 'shock-glasses' and with the third you could be ours... forever.
posted by wotsac at 3:48 PM on June 20, 2021 [12 favorites]


Perservere.

So did that third shot take the "severe" out of "perservere"[sic].?
posted by Droll Lord at 3:51 PM on June 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


This article felt incomplete to me, or my browser cut it off halfway.

Yeah, that was exactly my feeling too, like it had been laid out as a longer examination of "smooth" as a descriptive term, where the penultimate paragraph quoting Francis Bacon was to be a lead in to something of a history of describing liquor tastes, but was dropped for what feels like an intro to that longer possibility. Weird.

I am somewhat amused by some of the comments on the notion of the "snobbery" in differentiation in tastes. I mean no one dropped in to the post on Noctilucent clouds and complained about cloud snobs for not simply talking about them in terms of fluffy or not fluffy. There can certainly be greater and lesser expertise in knowledge of alcohol, people spend inordinate amounts of time and effort to develop that knowledge just as in any other field, but anytime "taste", whether literal or metaphorical, gets mentioned, people start to get defensive about "snobbery" unless it's in their own realm of deeper experience. Acknowledging we each have our own tastes, where our assessment of our own experience is the only real measure, should not interfere with also acknowledging that our experience is limited and often is not that of someone with a greater investment in the subject.

Sure, some "connoisseurs" can be snobs or just full of shit, but then so can many "amateurs" who disregard any interest that doesn't match their own with a sneer over that subjects worthlessness.
posted by gusottertrout at 3:55 PM on June 20, 2021 [10 favorites]


Having a negative opinion about "smooth", whether as a description or as a quality, isn't inherently snobbery. This, however, is snobbery:
“If their reaction is, ‘Oh, that’s smooth,’ it just tells me that I probably have not identified my customer as well as I thought I had,” Palazzi tells me. “I’m not upset at the person saying ‘smooth.’ I’m upset at the waste of life—it’s basically a sign that says ‘You just wasted your time.’”
Having expertise isn't what makes you a snob, it's using that expertise to belittle people and gatekeep entry into your hobby that makes you a snob.
posted by Pyry at 5:00 PM on June 20, 2021 [19 favorites]


I'd like to read/hear/see something on what harshness in cheap whiskey/booze is. Surely there are some chemical properties, like tannins in wine, that go a little way toward maybe constructing at least a negative differential about smoothness.

The problem with the article, in my opinion, is that it dunks on "smoothness" without providing any other examples of how one might want to describe alcohol

Oh that's simple, you use the remaining adjective: "jammy."
posted by rhizome at 5:23 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


Having expertise isn't what makes you a snob, it's using that expertise to belittle people and gatekeep entry into your hobby that makes you a snob.

If he was saying that to the potential customer, that would indeed be belittling and snobbish, describing his experience with the potential clients isn't quite the same. If the potential client can't distinguish whatever flavors PM Spirits prides themselves on and/or doesn't have the interest in "geek talk" about those flavors, then his product isn't likely to go over well and their time will be wasted for lack of common ground, according to his experience, and he finds the use of "smooth" a tell in how that encounter will go.

This article is written and the quote used to explain why the common language around liquor makes some of the experience difficult to "sell", which is more or less the case in many specialty fields. If the concepts aren't grasped then explaining the difference in detail, nuance, complexity, or whatever, won't be easy to do since you'd have to start from scratch which is often neither easy nor desired, so a waste of "life" for all involved unless there is some sense of the desire for a bridge to be formed.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:47 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


Smooth is the quality that allows the one to taste actual flavors in one's liquor rather than being focused entirely on the sensation of having swallowed a mouthful of razor blades. To my mind, it's a pretty fucking important quality unless your sole reason for drinking is to get piss drunk and pass out.
posted by wierdo at 5:58 PM on June 20, 2021 [9 favorites]


"It is a value judgment on whether or not one finds the spirit drinkable"

He knows what you mean when you say that you enjoy a smooth spirit. He understands that to you see smooth as the sign of quality and that you take a spirit that isn't smooth to be one that is harsh and therefore not very good.

He gets it. He just doesn't agree with you that that dichotomy is a good way to conceptualize truly great good spirits.

"It is the buffing out of character, the sanding down of the distinctions that make great spirits great."

He believes that the absence of smooth is not damnable harshness but, instead, something more like a variety of idiosyncratic characteristics which are noteworthy and erased by smoothness. Sure, bad spirits are nothing besides harsh, he'd likely agree, but great spirits are neither harsh nor (boringly) smooth.

He's like the car enthusiast who can appreciate that a car without power steering isn't just "hard to handle" or a chocolatier that is frustrated by people who think the only thing worth remarking on is how sweet a desert is.
posted by oddman at 6:29 PM on June 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


To my mind, [smooth is] a pretty fucking important quality unless your sole reason for drinking is to get piss drunk and pass out.

TBH, even if that was my intent, I'd prefer stuff that's at least kind to my throat (my liver would have to just deal with it either way, but that's a separate issue).
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:33 PM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Smooth, when it comes to adult beverages, is about mouth feel and finish. Not about flavor. A glass of Cabernet can finish smooth, a single malt scotch can have a smooth finish, certain cocktails can as well.

As a marketing term smooth has come to mean other things, for example, this.

Jager is not smooth.
posted by vrakatar at 7:20 PM on June 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


So did that third shot take the "severe" out of "perservere"[sic].?

More like the cell out of brain.
posted by y2karl at 7:51 PM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Calling booze smooth is like calling a curry with zero capsaicin "spicy". It's not necessarily wrong but it's a way of talking about the topic at hand without having to articulate how you feel about it.
posted by Ferreous at 7:56 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


“If their reaction is, ‘Oh, that’s smooth,’ it just tells me that I probably have not identified my customer as well as I thought I had,” Palazzi tells me. “I’m not upset at the person saying ‘smooth.’ I’m upset at the waste of life—it’s basically a sign that says ‘You just wasted your time.’”

Ha ha ha ha. Eat a bagadicks, Nicholas Palazzi. "Smooth" in this context likely means "there is nothing remarkable about this at all, Nicholas Palazzi, despite your exhaustive preamble, but at least it doesn't taste like astringent."

When you're interested in what you're imbibing, truly remarkable drinks actually make you pause. Sometimes it's a bad pause, like the one I experienced after plonking down a stupid amount of money on a bottle of Suntory Yamazaki and discovering that it tasted like the stuff you bang out of the bottom of the toaster every six months. I am still salty about that and am never wasting that kind of dosh on hooch ever again.

"Smooth" is just bare minimum baseline for booze you have paid money for. "Smooth" is the "No Junk Mail" sticker on the letterbox of your face, and your mouth is the mailhole.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:17 PM on June 20, 2021 [7 favorites]


While we're at it, what I really hate to see is someone referring to like jazz from the 50's as "smooth jazz". No! Stop that. "Smooth Jazz" is a genre. Like this. If they are wearing suits and there is an upright bass player, that is "jazz". But they seem unable to just say "jazz", they have to say "smooth" first. Same deal with funk, they cannot say "funk". They will say "jazz-funk" every time. Play them, I don't know, Bootsy Collins, they will call it "jazz-funk", a term I have heard no musician ever say. Their mouth is like white people doing the chicken dance at a wedding reception, they cannot stop it.
posted by thelonius at 8:20 PM on June 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


"Smooth jazz" was invented in the 80's by music marketers as a less old-fashioned term to sell Easy Listening music to millennials. I wasn't a fan of disco but I don't despise it; "smooth jazz" can fuck off.

/derail
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:41 PM on June 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


OK but can we all agree that Santana/Rob Thomas song is actually pretty good?
posted by muddgirl at 9:17 PM on June 20, 2021 [7 favorites]


OK but can we all agree that Santana/Rob Thomas song is actually pretty good?

Or else forget about it
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:18 PM on June 20, 2021 [16 favorites]


I rarely drink the hard stuff, but whenever I ponder the concept, I always think of the end of 'Deadwood' opening credits where several shots of something "not-smooth" are being poured out on the bartop.
posted by ovvl at 10:20 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


What a relief to find a story about booze instead of, y'know .

Or, well, y'know
posted by otherchaz at 10:55 PM on June 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


Maybe the 'wasting time' thing is that someone using that term isn't going to buy the really expensive stuff.

But at least the article explains one thing to me. I came late in life to hard liquor, primarily through neighborhood single-malt Scotch tastings. There, the tasters (who would likely not be Palazzi's customers) seemed to classify most of the samples as either 'peaty' (which to me is pretty much heaven) or 'smooth' (which to me tastes like something I would use to clean paintbrushes).
In that context, it seemed like the opposite of smooth, but now I guess it might just mean 'it could be worse'.
posted by MtDewd at 3:19 AM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


Not all people who enjoy liquor (or food, or art) have received training in the technical vocabulary that so-called "connoisseurs" use to describe their experiences to one another.

THIS. SO much this.

For my entire 20s and most of my 30s, I always heard people talking about "dry" wines, but no one really told me what that meant. And for me, I couldn't discern a difference between different wines - it all just tasted like, y'know, wine.

Then I dated a sommelier for a couple years. And on our first date, when we were getting ready to order, I happily told him that I would leave the wine ordering to him because I knew nothing. He asked if I liked things "dry" or not, I confessed that I didn't know what that meant, really. "All I know about wine is that there is red wine and white wine." He nodded thoughtfully, asked me a couple random questions about my taste preferences in other things, and then ordered me a glass of something unlike I had ever tasted before. It was delicious - fruity and light, and sweet. And after he'd let me marvel a bit, he then pointed out that "basically, dry is the opposite of sweet, and it sounds like your taste leans sweeter."

It should not have taken 12 years for me to learn that I did not prefer dry wine, and the only reason it took that long is because no one told me what the hell "dry" even meant.

(The sommelier turned out to be a jerk, but I am grateful for that knowledge at least.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:43 AM on June 21, 2021 [13 favorites]


"Smooth jazz" was invented in the 80's by music marketers

70's
posted by thelonius at 3:43 AM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]


I have a friend who is very into wine. I'm not, and one of the things I enjoy when I visit him is that he will pour me a small glass of something to try, and maybe talk a bit about the qualities of the wine. I remember one time in particular that he told me that if I held it in my mouth for a moment, a tannin taste—leathery—would emerge, and I was childishly pleased when it did. I enjoy having a friendly guide to things I'm not, and never really will be, into. I learn things from it.

I asked him once what the most expensive bottle of wine he'd ever drunk was, and it turned out he'd once received a bottle of Dom Perignon as a gift. He said it was absolutely extraordinary, but not so much so that he'd ever consider buying a bottle with his own money.
posted by Orlop at 7:17 AM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


Jack Daniels is a whiskey that I buy and drink regularly, but "smooth" is never a word I've associated with it.

Same - but I find it is most perfect with a tart/sweet lemonade over ice - it's harsh flavour enhances that. So - generally, I will buy cheaper (and therefore "harsher") alcohol for mixing. But - once I have a couple mixed cocktails, then pretty much even the harsh stuff goes down well.

This whole article smacks of "gatekeeping" and snobbery - just because it is alcohol, doesn't make that type of thing any worse than people citicizing food, ala "oh, you are going to eat THAT?" with it's undertone of being absolutely disgusted. (And hence has always made me completely uninterested in "tasting" events, be they for scotch, wine, etc.) Rule #1 for being a good person - don't be a snob, don't make fun of other peoples tastes - they are all subjective and often also cultural, personal and experiential in nature (for example - you may have been introduced to something by a parent/mentor when younger - and therefore have a "fond" preference and taste for something everybody else considers "bad".)
posted by rozcakj at 7:27 AM on June 21, 2021 [4 favorites]


one of the things I enjoy when I visit him is that he will pour me a small glass of something to try, and maybe talk a bit about the qualities of the wine. I remember one time in particular that he told me that if I held it in my mouth for a moment, a tannin taste—leathery—would emerge, and I was childishly pleased when it did.

The sommelier did this too. He had a (correct) sense that my own exposure to wine was pretty limited, and so he would often introduce me to some particular flavor profile I was likely not to have run into. I was especially struck by a really oaky chardonnay he gave me once - I was floored when it tasted like buttered toast.

....Unfortunately he would also introduce me to unpleasant things as well, just because of the novelty - I did a solo trip to a winery in Long Island once, and he encouraged me to try some particular varietal, but refused to tell me anything about what it would be like. And it was awful. And the sod knew it would be - when we debriefed, he got a devilish gleam in his eye and said "and the [whatever] tasted just like a wet fur coat, didn't it?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:34 AM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


I'd like to read/hear/see something on what harshness in cheap whiskey/booze is.

Read up on distiller cuts. One way to produce cheap whiskey is to go through only a single distillation and leave more of the heads and tails in the final product, because you don't have to dispose of them or go to the additional cost of redistilling them. The flip side of this is the dunder used in production of high-ester Jamaican rum. A small amount of the stuff left over after a distillation run is used for subsequent batches, on purpose, because one person's "harsh" is another person's "hogo."
posted by fedward at 8:02 AM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


If he was saying that to the potential customer, that would indeed be belittling and snobbish, describing his experience with the potential clients isn't quite the same.

It might as well be the same. "This person is not now and may not ever be my target customer" is one thing. "Waste of life" is something else entirely. That is an incredibly poor choice of words to use to describe an interaction even if he didn't say those words to somebody's face at the time.

I'm not calling out the snobbery because I feel I personally have been wronged. I'm calling out the snobbery because this dude is very much one of my people, and I want my people to be better.
posted by fedward at 8:17 AM on June 21, 2021 [6 favorites]


It should not have taken 12 years for me to learn that I did not prefer dry wine, and the only reason it took that long is because no one told me what the hell "dry" even meant.

According to the sommelier video, the dry tannin taste comes from grape skins and stems. Taste a grape skin sometime via peeling it off the fresh grape. It actually tastes pretty bad.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:18 AM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


What a relief to find a story about booze instead of, y'know yt .
posted by box

OK but can we all agree that Santana/Rob Thomas song is actually pretty good?
posted by muddgirl

I don't understand box's contempt for a great song, and muddgirl's faint praise is not good enough for an excellent song. If you haven't read the Rolling Stone article, it's really good.
posted by theora55 at 8:46 AM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


The article is so condescending. Oh dear, you don't have the vocabulary to describe this bourbon. I'd enjoy having the discretionary income to buy very expensive bourbon and scotch. I find wine snobbery annoying AF, at least in part because there is a lot of quite good affordable wine, and wine snobbery is mostly one-upping, in my experience. It would be fun to have lots of money, drink nice things and have other good experiences, but if I had big money, I'd probably do useful stuff with most of it, and when I have hung around rich people, I find that money does change people, and not in such a nice way, a lot of the time. The article is pretentious twaddle, and I'd quite like some smooth whisky, tyvm.
posted by theora55 at 8:53 AM on June 21, 2021 [4 favorites]


Oh dear, you don't have the vocabulary to describe this bourbon.

Which is especially funny, because much of the liquor, especially wine, "vocabulary" is an artificial set of words fairly disconnected from their commonly understood usages. You have the words like "bark"--does the person using the word habitually dine on bark to know? And then you have the even greater cheat of using words like "cherries" and "peaches"--those wines do not taste like cherries or peaches as you and I know them, friends, they taste like some taste some people in the wine world choose to call "cherries" or "peaches." I don't have a developed palate when it comes to wine, but I know when something tastes or does not taste like a particular fruit!

Once you accept that this language is 3/4 marketing and 1/4 trying to describe tastes not commonly encountered by the drinker (you do have to use some referent), it becomes much less impressive.
posted by praemunire at 9:00 AM on June 21, 2021 [9 favorites]


I don't know anything about liquor, but I wouldn't begrudge a luthier who said a word used to distinguish good factory-produced guitars from bad factory-produced guitars was useless for trying to describe why his hand-made guitars sound better than good factory-produced guitars.
"Playable?" of course my guitars are all playable.
posted by straight at 9:09 AM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]


The first link in this Ask Metafilter post is a manual on the manufacture of low-cost liquor in the mid-19th century. The practice at the time was to filter and dilute industrial alcohol and then doctor it with all manner of flavorings, colorings, and other adulterants including sulfuric acid and ammonia, with the goal of producing something vaguely approximating actual distilled spirits. While "smooth" may be a low bar for judging the quality of liquor, I'd hazard a guess that nothing described in this book would be characterized as such.
posted by zombiedance at 9:13 AM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]


"Smooth jazz" was invented in the 80's by music marketers

70's


Aw man - I'd successfully managed to purge that song from my memory, and now it's back. Thanks a bunch. Maybe if I drink enough non-smooth booze...
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:28 AM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


completely uninterested in "tasting" events

But a (scotch/wine/whatever) tasting with a group of friends (non-judgemental, of course - say, some of your fellow MeFites) can be fun - you get to try different ones without having to commit to a bottle of something you may or may not prefer, and it's a celebratory exploration for all.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:33 AM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]


"smooth"=Not Rotgut. Expensive or cheap..
posted by mermayd at 9:40 AM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


I tend to stay out of threads like this, as the overwhelming use of "snob/snobbery" about an industry expert explaining a facet of sales, is tiresome.
There have been a few fair comments here:
basalganglia: thanks for posting Andre Mack he's terrific and so are his wines

gusottertrout: This article is written and the quote used to explain why the common language around liquor makes some of the experience difficult to "sell", which is more or less the case in many specialty fields. If the concepts aren't grasped then explaining the difference in detail, nuance, complexity, or whatever, won't be easy to do since you'd have to start from scratch which is often neither easy nor desired, so a waste of "life" for all involved unless there is some sense of the desire for a bridge to be formed.

So many folks here seem to need to explain that they don't believe in bridges.

I DO use words like "cherries" or "peaches" to describe a smell or taste, as most of my customers can relate--can imagine-- what a cherry or a peach smells or tastes like. And when they get it-- when I see them sniff or sip, and their eyes light up and they say, "It does!" and they are getting more than just fruity booze experience-- then I can point out other wines, or spirits, or beer, that might be like that. So they can try something else without simply hurling themselves into the river.

But a (scotch/wine/whatever) tasting with a group of friends (non-judgemental, of course - say, some of your fellow MeFites) can be fun - you get to try different ones without having to commit to a bottle of something you may or may not prefer, and it's a celebratory exploration for all.
I just did a Scotch tasting for friends over the weekend; my car buddy had been gifted a bunch of sample packs, plus random bottles. I researched and put them in an order to make it easy to build on the experience, to go from a very simple profile to more complex. My friends were able to take notes and figure out what they liked, what they didn't, but even better-- what was different between them, in a way they could remember. So next time they decide on a bottle, they have some tools to read a label and say, "oh, yeah, I loved that sherry finish with the high ABV!". And they will not feel as though their money is wasted.
posted by winesong at 10:04 AM on June 21, 2021 [7 favorites]


The issue isn't just one of vocabulary in the sense of knowing the "right word" as much as it is in how the ubiquity of a term like "smooth" points to lack of shared conceptual framework that can be helpful or necessary to gaining a fuller sense of appreciation. Anyone who's watched food shows likely has come across things like a chef saying this meal is a play on some other dish. To fully appreciate the "play" one needs to be familiar with the dish that serves as reference point, that's where the differences in flavor and/or presentation come in.

One can of course like or dislike the food without knowing a thing about any of that, but having more knowledge and experience can provide a deeper sense of awareness of various qualities the ingredients have and a more developed sense of taste in experiencing them. The word choice isn't the issue, its the desire to understand and communicate experience. People use smooth because its easy and safe for being so common and communicates little, while trying to focus and express one's experience in other words, even those of your own choosing, is hard.

The problem of vocabulary obscuring concept instead of helping elucidate it isn't just something in booze tasting of course, there have been like complaints in other fields in various forms. Here's one for art writing, for example, that captures some of the many complaints about lazy and empty writing in that field. In other fields outside those of "taste" there are similar complaints posted regularly even here on Metafilter. I couldn't even estimate how many dozens of times I've read about a someone talking about a department head or client using terms that show they don't have an adequate grasp of what some work entails or the properties of the thing they are asking for even though one might expect they should given their positions.

Almost every field has this at some level, but most complaints of this sort are accepted without issue because they don't involve "us" as the one lacking experience. When those things get mentioned then it tends towards justification of why "my" knowledge is perfectly adequate and the other person is a snob for talking about things outside "my" experience as if they were important. It's generally a substitution of talking about feelings towards a thing in place of qualities or elements of that thing, as if the latter threatened the former somehow. There's some real problems with that, it leans towards a small "c" conservative perspective where comfort and familiarity take precedent and status quo values are often upheld, particularly when that personal history is a majoritarian one. While the dismissal of perspective from those more deeply invested in whatever thing is little different in effect than the so-called snobbery being objected to.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:24 AM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]


with a group of friends (non-judgemental, of course...)

That does sound like fun - it is an experience with people you trust, probably mostly driven by passion (i.e. "I love this 'thing', you may too"), rather than a formal facilitated experience by someone who is mentioning things that my particular taste-bus cannot discern...
posted by rozcakj at 10:53 AM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


Winesong - if there were more people like you in the wine/liquor industry, there might not have been a need for this article.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:54 AM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


THIS. SO much this.

For my entire 20s and most of my 30s, I always heard people talking about "dry" wines, but no one really told me what that meant. And for me, I couldn't discern a difference between different wines - it all just tasted like, y'know, wine.


OK, I may have told this story on metafilter before, but I can’t remember.

I was a fine wine and spirits salesman in the 1980s, retail at first and then as my wine and salesman chops improved, wholesale. For what it’s worth, I strongly believe that good booze is whatever you like the taste of, I don’t even really like wine or drinking alcohol that much, and I have tried every expensive thing you’ve ever heard of, multiple times, including stuff way out of my own league. Like I’ve had a 1982 Ch. Haut Brion, multiple times. It was good. Petrus was better.

First, my bourbon recommendation: if you can find it, Old Fitzgerald 100 proof is as good and “smooth” as anything I’ve ever had, and not unreasonable. It’s on the syrupy side, as people like now. But its flavor spectrum is richer. Me I like a little fire in my firewater, and always liked Fighting Cock 103 for getting into trouble.

Anyway ok the story… It was customary for wholesalers to loan out warehouse, office and sales staff to our big retail accounts during the big holiday rush scenes at Christmas and Thanksgiving, when trucks would literally be offloading cases of cheap cava and such on a daily basis at some of the stores.

I was working one Christmas as a floor salesman patiently explaining carbonic maceration or food pairings with the snobbier customers (my specialty). We also had a guy I’ll call Dave on the job, a burly, rough-edged (but sweet) blue collar warehouse worker who was mostly helping move stock but had come out on the mobbed sales floor to assist.

Back then Americans were just setting out on a 30 year path to a more wine-centered drinking culture, and many many patrons knew they were *supposed* to want and like “dry” wines but actually didn’t have the taste for such wines yet. (This explains the massive commercial success of “white Zinfandel,” in those years; it had become slightly shameful to like cheap “Rosé” but call it something else and it was a smash hit. Likewise “buttery” over-oaked California Chardonnay.)

Anyway, if you sold wine in even a fairly upscale location in any volume, you got used to being asked “BUT IS IT DRYyyy?” by every other customer who wasn’t a connoisseur but needed something to impress or that would be “nice” as a gift. I had a whole repertoire of techniques for figuring out what they MEANT by “dry,” as you could really screw up by sending someone home with a Sancerre when they were about ready for a Pouilly-Fuisse. Or whatever. They needed to believe that whatever they were buying was “dry” enough to be cool, but really most of them wanted something with fruitiness, viscosity, or residual sugar well north of someone who was acclimated to what we now take for granted.

It could be annoying, time after time, to hear “but is it DRY?” But it came with the territory. We were evangelists.

Not Dave. The store was just booming, barely room to move and very noisy, when from across the store I hear Dave explode and shout “LADY, HOW CAN IT BE FUCKIN’ DRYYYYY WHEN IT’S FUCKIN’ WET??????!!!”

It got real quiet for a moment and then a few of us dove for the corner to hustle Dave out for a smoke and to try to rescue the sale, which I did.
posted by spitbull at 11:06 AM on June 21, 2021 [18 favorites]


Someday I’ll write up my stories of selling Bordeaux futures as investment vehicles to newly rich early tech industry execs in 1990s Austin.

Also, I have seen Chateau Margaux poured over ice and served by a pool.

All of which is funnier because I got into the fine wine trade by driving a truck.
posted by spitbull at 11:12 AM on June 21, 2021 [7 favorites]


I DO use words like "cherries" or "peaches" to describe a smell or taste, as most of my customers can relate--can imagine-- what a cherry or a peach smells or tastes like. And when they get it-- when I see them sniff or sip, and their eyes light up and they say, "It does!" and they are getting more than just fruity booze experience-- then I can point out other wines, or spirits, or beer, that might be like that. So they can try something else without simply hurling themselves into the river.

I do recognize that you've got to use some language to describe the differences in tastes, and your technique of trying to match newcomers with a flavor complex they like is totally valid. But I bet if you didn't prime them with a word like "cherries" most of them wouldn't come up with it. If wine tasted like cherries or peaches, I'd drink a lot more of it.
posted by praemunire at 11:22 AM on June 21, 2021 [4 favorites]


People in this thread might appreciate this video of James Hoffmann introducing people to the basics of buying coffee. A primer on the vocabulary of tasting notes is included.
posted by tigrrrlily at 11:48 AM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


I am suddenly reminded of a story that my aunt loves to tell about her own aunt/my great-aunt Nell.

This happened on a Thanksgiving when my parents and aunts and uncles were all in their 20s. Everyone was gathering at the table, and someone was pouring the wine as the other dishes were being fetched from the kitchen and things were being doled out. One of the "Grown kids" (one of my aunts/uncles) asked to see the wine bottle, and then made some kind of fake-casual comment about it ("oh, it's a 1968 burgundy, interesting"). Another person responded with a similarly fake-casual comment ("I dunno, I think the 1968 burgundys are better than the 1967s") and still another person chimed in ("but have you tried the 1967 chardonnays?") And gradually my parents and aunts and uncles got caught up a conversation about the wine; the kind of thing where they were trying to subtly show off what they knew, as my grandparents and great-aunts and great-uncles just kind of bemusedly listened to them all running their mouths off.

Finally Great-Aunt Nell tapped my aunt on the shoulder. "Susie, do you want to hear what I know about wine?" she asked.

My other aunts and uncles and parents all fell silent at this. "Why sure, Aunt Nell, what do you know about wine?"

Great-Aunt Nell picked up her glass, looked at everyone else, and then said "I know enough to shut up and drink it." And she then toasted the table and did precisely that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:09 PM on June 21, 2021 [6 favorites]


Lot of people in here mad/incredulous about alcohol enthusiasts having a specialty language to describe flavor notes.
posted by Ferreous at 12:41 PM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]


Ferreous, I wouldn't say that people are mad that such a language exists. Rather, I would say that people are mad that there are some people who try to use that language to exclude others, instead of using it to in-clude others.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:47 PM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]


But I bet if you didn't prime them with a word like "cherries" most of them wouldn't come up with it. If wine tasted like cherries or peaches, I'd drink a lot more of it.

This is my trouble, particularly with beer. You know what tastes like cherries? A nice kriek, which is made with actual cherries. But there's so much language-by-analogy in hops that I must just have a tin palate for. "Huell Melon" manages to be pretty melon-y, but for every one of those there's a dozen "tropical, papaya, citrus" IPAs which I enjoy but would not for the life of me have come to those descriptors without priming.
posted by CrystalDave at 12:53 PM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


In the fine wine world there are two separate jargons, maybe three. There’s the public facing marketing speak, which is all about flavor descriptors that sound metaphorically appealing or suggestive of luxury, like “buttery” and “smooth” — and that people want to hear to reassure their purchase decision. Then there’s the technical language of winemakers, which draws on the work of UC Davis prof Eileen Noble and is very precise about flavor notes and chemical explanations thereof, even when they might be offputting to the uninitiated (a very good Sancerre SHOULD be slightly reminiscent of cat piss, seriously!). Finally, there’s the experienced oenophile language, which can get technical but tends toward simple comparison to other well known wines, like a spectrum of possibilities. In my experience wine salespeople talk the first with customers and the third amongst themselves.

Wine critics are all over the map. Rarely are they reliable in my experience.

Either way it’s all chemistry AND all culture, both in the glass and in our brains, and the two can’t be separated.

I sold spirits too, learned a lot about them, and if I drink now it’s almost only ever a neat shot of a single malt Scotch, Irish, or Japanese whiskey. My tastes are very narrow and set. I hardly ever drink wine and when I do I can’t remember being excited enough about it to be able to tell the difference between two vintages of the same producer’s Chateauneuf de Pape, which I once could do reliably.

But y’all, wait til you discover the world of artisanal cannabis growing.
posted by spitbull at 1:01 PM on June 21, 2021 [4 favorites]


Japanese whiskey

I had some of this once, before I quit drinking (I guess that's obvious) and it was really good and interesting. I advise you people searching for a bourbon you like to drop that and try some.
posted by thelonius at 1:20 PM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


It was pretty smooth
posted by thelonius at 1:20 PM on June 21, 2021 [9 favorites]


But a (scotch/wine/whatever) tasting with a group of friends (non-judgemental, of course - say, some of your fellow MeFites)

I have happy memories of the amaro party at aubilenon's place, lo these many years ago.

there's a dozen "tropical, papaya, citrus" IPAs which I enjoy but would not for the life of me have come to those descriptors without priming

At the same time, as someone who likes the classic west-coast IPA style (NO HAZE THANKYOUVERYMUCH), there is a… fruitiness? about some IPAs that's hard to describe otherwise. It's probably useful to remember that "tastes like" is closer to "reminds me of" than actually "tastes like".

Overall, I agree that the article feels like it somehow got cut off halfway though. Okay, we get the railing against the people you perceive as being ignorant about spirits… how about some education on top of that?

And as far as how much "cred" one has regarding challenging flavors, I've joked for years about getting/making a t-shirt reading "I SIP FERNET BRANCA (fear me)".
posted by Lexica at 2:00 PM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


I'm just here for the alcohol wholesaler stories. Somebody get Netflix on the horn.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:33 PM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]


If wine tasted like cherries or peaches, I'd drink a lot more of it.

Obligatory

(This basically happened to me about five years ago at a recruitment dinner when one of my friends, tired of hearing me complain about hoppy craft beers, suggested I try Troegs Mad Elf. That stuff really tastes like cherries! So I had a second! And then I stood up at the end of dinner and immediately had to sit back down....)
posted by basalganglia at 3:21 PM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


Japanese high end whiskeys tend to be in the style of blended Scotch whiskey, based on malted barley and grain. Some of them are exquisite, but they are typically as light as a blended Scotch even when they are single malts (very rare). My favorite is Hibiki, which is incredibly delicate and complex even in its youngest bottling. Available in insanely expensive 17, 21, and 30 year old versions too. Japanese distillers do make absolutely world class whiskeys. But they are expressions of the blender’s art.

I love big peaty single malt Scotches reeking of iodine and seaweed, but as I’ve gotten older I have lightened my taste first to the milder single malt Scotches like Cardhu and then to Irish whiskeys, which are increasingly available in single malt and aged bottlings now on the US market. Japanese whiskeys are at the far end of that continuum, and if the good stuff was cheaper or available in more places I’d drink it as a preference. But it’s extremely pricey stuff.

I was a Bourbon buff when I was younger, before the modern Renaissance of the stuff. I’ve had some of the top end stuff in recent years, including Pappy. I appreciate it as a craft product. But the sweetness of corn liquor now just turns me off after more than a sip. I’m a bar musician, and we drink for free most places but have to pace ourselves. My regular always available drink is Jameson’s neat, and it always goes down just fine. I keep a pint in my Telecaster case too — a singer’s best medicine.

My youthful experience in the booze business taught me a whole lot of valuable stuff, and schooled me well on detailed knowledge of the products and the ability to taste them professionally. I actually advanced in the trade mostly on the strength of an intuitively good ability to describe and remember flavors, as well as good knowledge of food and speaking French. (I had been and was sometimes still a chef in those same years, I worked a lot). But my takeaway is that the business is extremely problematic in a lot of ways, not the least of which is the predictable rampant alcoholism beneath the surface, and the same hard partying culture as restaurant work. It made playing rock and roll seem almost sober by comparison.

Would be a dark Netflix series.
posted by spitbull at 3:55 PM on June 21, 2021 [5 favorites]


Back when I was on alcohol support boards every day, multiple people who worked in the industry turned up. Often they wanted to keep working in it - it was their career, or it was a family business - and were concerned about how to handle the semi-obligatory drinking situations which seemed to be pretty well braided into the work culture. I don't know how well that worked out. There is a kind of sober bartender subculture, so maybe the same could be done working as an alcohol retailer or wholesaler.
posted by thelonius at 4:37 PM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: It makes playing rock and roll seem almost sober by comparison
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:47 PM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


I’m torn on this. Despite having tried a lot of beverages and developed from fairly strong opinions about what I like, I would never call myself a “connoisseur” specifically because I am terrible at identifying smells and flavors with names, and I do have some anxiety about being cornered by some snobby prick demanding I do so on command to prove my mouth works, mostly because that occasionally happens.

On the other hand, I do get how “smooth” is a painfully underwhelming superlative. It seems to be a “this isn’t terrible” reaction, like test driving a car and the best reaction you can come up with is “it didn’t burst into flame and kill us all,” or the well-understood red flag of complimenting a date by describing them as “not crazy.” To say “this, surprisingly, did not hurt me” is not exactly a rave, and there are plenty of contexts where somebody hoping to share a positive experience would be fairly disappointed with that reaction.
posted by gelfin at 5:34 PM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


“If their reaction is, ‘Oh, that’s smooth,’ it just tells me that I probably have not identified my customer as well as I thought I had,” Palazzi tells me. “I’m not upset at the person saying ‘smooth.’ I’m upset at the waste of life—it’s basically a sign that says ‘You just wasted your time.’”

This guy is a sales guy. The waste of life he refers to is his own. He has just done his shtick and discovered that it was a huge waste of time. His own time. His own life. That’s how I read it, anyway.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:52 AM on June 22, 2021 [3 favorites]


Smooth is a more useful word than "body" or "backbone."
posted by 3.2.3 at 10:38 AM on June 22, 2021


“Body” or “mouth feel” are precise technical terms for viscosity and residual sugar/acidity balance in relation to alcohol content. I would say “body” is one of the less woo-ish words in the tasting jargon, although no doubt it’s misused. “Body” requires very little experience to be able to describe accurately. It’s the sensation of “bigness” of the drink and it matters a great deal to proper food pairings. Drink a very light vino verdhe or a >very heavy Meursault with your foie gras and the flavor of the food changes.

From being a serious cannabis grower in my elder phase, I’ve learned a lot more flavor science. When I was in the wine trade we knew “terpenes” and “esters” mattered as much as sugars and acids and alcohol levels, but cannabis science takes this much further, especially in making extracts and concentrates which absolutely can taste strongly of grapes or lemons or yeast or many other white easily identifiable flavors. Precise terpene analysis and direct genetic control over strain hybridization plus insane profit margins for commercial growers and big demand for innovative new dosage delivery mechanisms has been absolutely driving the field.

“Backbone” in wine jargon tends to refer to the level of tannic acids and thus the youthfulness of a wine. I agree it’s a more subjective term.
posted by spitbull at 10:54 AM on June 22, 2021 [4 favorites]


If wine tasted like cherries or peaches, I'd drink a lot more of it.

There appear to be abstract representations of various familiar flavours, which are recognisable within the domains of wine, beer, coffee and so on, though bear little resemblance to the original flavour to one unfamiliar with that domain.
posted by acb at 3:23 PM on June 22, 2021 [1 favorite]


I am a very visual person, there were always reams of paper and all kinds of paints and markers at home and I spent more hours drawing and painting growing up than doing almost anything else. I used to read color theory books for fun. I have a degree in design, spent years building user interfaces and studying visual perception and ergonomics.

Sight is my sense of reference to make sense of the world.

I did not really get into the world of taste and smell until my late 20s, when I was able to travel more and afford better food and drinks. I went from eating mystery meat street tacos and drinking coca cola and corona several times a week to trying all kinds of world cuisine and dripping my toes into wine and craft beer, followed closely by distilled alcohol and cocktails. This led to making all kinds of fermentables at home, culminating with brewing complex beers and fermenting distilling my own rums and whiskies. And also growing gourmet mushrooms and making all kinds of fermented drinks.

It was not until my 40s that I started getting into practicing music. Learning a few chords in a couple of instruments, going through the rudiments of rhythm and tempo, reading and playing with some beginner level music theory.

Both in food and drink and in music I had to go through something that was already natural to do with colors and shapes: Make sense of what written or oral descriptions of the thing itself mean when I don't have a direct experience of the thing. It was hard, but I am getting there.

What I found, and it may be obvious to many, is that there are some terms that make sense, that people have agreed on their meaning and they refer to the same thing wherever you go. Then there are terms that are in flux, trying to describe some real experience, but not everyone agrees what they mean. Then there are mountains and mountains of bullshit terms that people use to sell product or to agrandize themselves.

In the world of color they are things like dark yellow ochre, natural sienna, red ochre and burnt sienna. To most people they are just browns and oranges. To visual artists and designers they have a very specific meaning, and the difference matters, even if they sound like snobs. Or you have Pantone and RAL color codes. Who needs 100+ types of red? Artists and designers. There is an old book of which I have a reprint somewhere that tried to standardise the color names naturalists used. For every color it includes a hand painted little swatch, then an example of a mineral, a plant, and an animal that shows this color in nature. I don't remember a real example, but something like "Bulbasaur Blue: Found in Unobtanium Oxide, Nirnroot Flowers, the tail feathers of the Warbling Bushtit". All these are good color names.

Then you have things like "Whispering Peach", "Naughty Neutral" or "EMOTIONAL", which are all real color names from paint companies, accompanied by claims of how painting yours walls with these colors will make you happier, healthier and sexier. This bullshit marketing terminology.

Going back to alcoholic drinks I can talk about hops and claims that some IPAs taste like papaya or mango or a pine forest in the high sierras. If you drink an IPA with lots of Galaxy hops, it will definitely not taste like sucking the goo out of a passionfruit or biting into a slice of pinneaple. But if you asked a bunch of people to pair 3 mystery hops with 3 foods, and set up a table with Galaxy, Cascade and Apollo hops and three bowls with passionfruit and pineaplpe, pinecones and pine needles, and coriander seeds and some wildflowers, I would bet good money that the resulting pairings would be Galaxy-Tropical fruit, Apollo-Coriander, and Cascade-Pine. We say that Galaxy tastes/smells like tropical fruit because of all the hops and all the common foods people may know, Galaxy reminds us more of tropical fruit than any other thing. Turns out that if you do some fine chemical analysis many hops contain the same or very similar compounds than the other things they are being compared to. I consider these useful descriptors.

Similar with malt in beer. No beer (excluding gimmick beers) tastes just like biscuits, molasses or scalded milk, but some malts taste more like biscuits than any other malt, and some do taste like (and contain due to the malting and roasting process) some molasses.

But then I've seen beers described as tasting like a sunset in the deserts of Chihuahua. This is bullshit too.

Back to the article, I get the point. Using "smooth" as the main or only descriptor of why you like a complex liquor is like saying that you really like blue paintings, and can't wait to go to the Louvre to see some.

(This turned into a rant, this is what happens when there is a 2 hour all-hands meeting on zoom)
posted by Dr. Curare at 10:18 AM on June 23, 2021 [4 favorites]


I agree with fedward's comment- it's uncomfortable to realize when you might be that snob, and I'd also never want to be so snobby that I'd claim sharing a drink with someone who describes said drink as "smooth" is me just wasting my time. At some point, we didn't know any terminology for tasting notes. If you love spirits and want to share that love with others, be open and talk through the spirit with them in a way that helps them discover what, specifically, is pleasurable about the drink. Saying something like "Many people do describe this Shiraz as smooth, and I've even heard some say it has notes of leather, or chocolate, or smoke. Do you agree? Does it taste different for you, or remind you of any favorite flavors? It can be different for everyone, there are no wrong answers." You're essentially helping someone think through what it is they like (or dislike!) about a particular beverage, which in turn helps them to better understand themselves and what they want out of wine, beer, spirits etc.

As a side note, I dislike that the author wasn't bothered to include a guide to some of the terms a person could use other than/in addition to "smooth" - he's pointing out what he sees as a problem, but doesn't bother to provide a solution or show how people can begin to learn about how to talk about spirits in a way that will enable them to better identify, going forward, what types of wines and spirits they may want to seek out if they like X wine or Y spirits.

Here's a kind of glossary of terms that one might use, for getting started. Some terms are more esoteric than others, but it may be helpful for some.
posted by nightrecordings at 6:25 AM on June 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


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