How To Annoy Scotch Snobs

By Richard Thomas

If you are a whisk(e)y enthusiast of any stripe, and have been for any substantial length of time, you’ve already encountered at least one Scotch snob. Perhaps it was virtually, in a whisky forum, or perhaps it was in the flesh at a bar or a convention. However it happened, you already know, dear reader, exactly what I mean by “Scotch snob:” a self-appointed guardian of Scotch whisky purity, someone happy to insult you if you dare spell it “whiskey” and who disdains bourbon, Irish whiskey and even Japanese whisky as a liquid akin to dirty bathwater.

Snobbery gets under the skin of any well-adjusted whisk(e)y lover, so here is a road map to playfully poking those snobs in their most sensitive points:

1. Spell it “Scotch whiskey:” As noted above, Scotch snobs can’t stand the idea that other users of the English language, such as 323 million Americans, might spell that one word a little differently. In a true sign of how demented the Scotch snob is, he pours his vitriol into this one word, and cares not a whit for the spelling split of “color/colour” and other differences of language. Go on a forum and tweak the Scotch snobs by posting a picture and writing “this was the best Scotch whiskey I’ve had in ages.” Then insist you are right because it’s what your published, American grammatical style guide tells you to do, and the University of Chicago (or whatever institution) trumps the opinion of some bozo on the internet.
2. Correct Scotch pronunciations with the wrong one: Before the Scotch boom, many of us who aren’t from Britain or Ireland learned the wrong pronunciation for words like Auchentoshan, Islay and Laphroaig. We had only read them and never heard them properly said, until our first run in with a black-heart Scotch snob. Here is how you turn them red-eyed with anger in return: insist that bad pronunciation is, in fact, right. Go on saying “Is-lay” instead of “Aisle-Lah” whenever a snob starts pontificating about this distillery or that.
3. Pour your 25 Year Old Brora Into A Dixie Cup: Or any other old rare Scotch, because the main thing is how snobs insist on particular types of glassware for drinking Scotch. Keep a Dixie Cup handy at whisky shows, just so you can do this in front of a snob if they occasion demands it. Watch the spitting, cursing and condemnations commence. Want to take it up a notch? Pour some Coca-Cola into the Dixie Cup and declare “this needs mixing.”
4. Happily announce you are a member of Whisky Blasphemy: Many Scotch snobs are members or followers of Malt Maniacs, and therefore part of the clique that drove these guys (who have the rather reasonable idea that if they own a bottle of fine whiskey they could do what they want with it) into forming their own group. So, some of the worst snobs will know exactly who you are talking about, and hate you for it on the spot.
5. Suggest that a new NAS whisky or a supermarket brand is good: Two articles of gospel among all serious, self-appointed guardians of Scotch purity are that all new NAS whiskies are diabolical, higher priced substitutions for good age statement whiskies, and that payola is involved whenever a generic supermarket whisky gets a good write-up. Suggest one or the other to your snob, coax out these opinions, and then tell them how ignorant their understanding of the industry is. Then sit back and enjoy as the sparks fly.