1001 WHISKIES YOU MUST TRY BEFORE YOU DIE – Edited by Dominic Roskrow

Shane | 18 July 2013 | 1 Reply

Murdoch Books, rrp $39.99
Published 24 July 2013
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
10/10

If you’re after whisky (or whiskey) porn, then you have found your holy grail in this epic tome edited by Dominic Roskrow, the editor of Whiskeria, the world’s biggest whisky magazine.

Running at 960 pages and chock full of colour photos of the bottles in question as well as memorabilia, this book does exactly what it says on the tin, so brace yourself for detailed tasting notes and background history on one thousand and one whiskies so lavishly and lovingly rendered that reading this to someone on a call may well count as phone sex.

The book triumphs by not limiting itself to any one variety of whisky – standing boldly next to the many Scotch and Irish Whiskies are Bourbons and other American variations, Japanese whiskies and cult favourites from India, Australia (a surprising number of premium whiskies are made in Tasmania), New Zealand, South Africa, Taiwan and European nations.

The pretty pictures are enough to get any whisky afficianado drooling, and wrapping your head around the adoringly written descriptions is enough to get even more juices flowing.

Trivia also abounds, such as noting how to purchase your own barrel of Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel and have your name on each of the roughly 250 bottles that produces.

I’ll close with the tasting notes from that brew, one of my personal favourites: “Nice and dark, with a big sweet nose, spiky with woody notes. Quite rich in corn, but slashed with milk chocolate and vanilla, and nailed firmly to a spicy oak framework. Drinkable even at 47 percent, but there’s wood in the tail that brings a pop to the finish.”

Matter of fact, think I’ll have one right now…