You Might Be A Scotch Geek If…

By Richard Thomas

Where does the line between Scotch enthusiast, someone who enjoys a dram of fine single malt and knows something about it, and the Scotch geek, or the person who devotes a large and probably growing segment of their lives to the “Water of Life,” lie? To borrow a page from Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a Scotch geek if…

1. You have a considered opinion on the pros and cons of both chill filtration and no age statement whiskies.

2. You can discuss the merits of the last edition of Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible like it’s the current #1 bestselling novel.

3. You think Brian Cox’s classic guide on pronouncing Scotch distillery names is so elementary, you wonder why anyone would need it.

4. You understand this joke. Double points if you think it is funny:

You like Auchentoshan, eh? So, what you really want is a dram of Irish whiskey?

5. You enjoy explaining the difference between malt and grain whisky, and between single malt and blended whisky.

6. The number of whisky festivals you’ve been to outnumbers the number of music festivals you’ve attended.

7. Phenolic Parts Per Million (PPM) is part of your everyday e-mail vocabulary, and you aren’t working in a distillery lab.

8. You think people like David Stewart, Alan Winchester and Richard Paterson are celebrities.

9. You can lecture on the ramifications of pot still height and shape.

10. You know that all the new countries getting into making whisky follow the Scottish model, and think it’s proof of Scottish greatness!

11. You own a pipette to carefully control how much distilled water, and only distilled water, goes into your whisky. And you always use it.

12. When you are in small cities and large towns in Europe, your priority is hitting local liquor stores to look for long lost, hidden gems.

13. Your travel bucket list is dominated by obscure places in Scotland.

14. You reach for a thesaurus when you do your tasting notes.

15. You believe the members of “Whisky Blasphemy” really aren’t entitled to do as they please with their bottles of aged, expensive single malt.

16. You strenuously object to the title of this article and insist you are a “whisky geek” instead.