Whisky Education Is About More Than What’s in the Glass

By Kirsty McKerrow, Founder Edinburgh Whisky Academy

One of the questions I'm often asked is how we can encourage more people to engage with whisky. It's a conversation that usually centres on flavour, production, sustainability or innovation.  All important topics, of course, but I think we sometimes overlook the obvious.

How do we make people feel?

Over the past few months, we’ve been interviewing some of our educators and contributing experts about the art of hosting a whisky tasting. Between them they've spent decades introducing people to whisky in distilleries, bars, classrooms and festival halls across the world. I expected plenty of practical advice on glassware, tasting order and flavour descriptors. Instead, almost every conversation came back to the same point: people remember the atmosphere long after they've forgotten the tasting notes.

That resonated with me because, in many ways, it reflects what good whisky education has always been about.

There is still a perception that whisky is a category you have to ‘earn’ your way into before you can really enjoy it, and that you need to understand how it’s made or have the vocabulary to describe exactly what you’re tasting.  For someone new to whisky that can make the category feel intimidating before a glass has even been picked up.  What we’ve learned at the Edinburgh Whisky Academy is that confidence and knowledge tend to grow together and often the first thing someone needs is simply the confidence to trust their own response. 

As whisky writer Dave Broom reminded us during our interviews: "The whole point about whisky tasting is to give people confidence." Of course! When people feel comfortable, they're naturally more curious. They ask questions that they might otherwise have kept to themselves. They compare impressions with the person sitting next to them. They start trusting their own senses instead of looking for the "right" answer.

That confidence is something we have the ability to create as educators and hosts. Joe Cabassa, one of our Approved Course Providers, spoke about the importance of guiding people without taking ownership of their experience. One piece of advice, in particular, struck me: "Never say, 'I don't find that.'"

Imagine a guest says they can smell honey in their glass. Your own first impression might have been apples or vanilla, but does it really matter? If we dismiss someone’s observation too quickly, we’re not just disagreeing with a tasting note, we’re telling them that their own senses can’t be trusted. We may use language differently to describe the same flavours.  Taste and aroma are highly subjective, shaped by our individual memories, experiences and associations. There isn’t a “right” way to describe what’s in the glass, and that’s part of what makes tasting whisky so interesting.

A far more rewarding approach is to ask what made them think of honey, explore it together and see where the conversation leads. Sometimes you'll arrive at a shared description, sometimes you won't. Either way, everyone learns something.

One of our lecturers, Dr Gordon Steele, approaches tastings in much the same way. Rather than supplying answers, he asks questions - if someone describes a whisky as fruity, what kind of fruit are they thinking of? Fresh apples? Plums? Citrus? The conversation gradually becomes more detailed, but it always begins with the guest's own experience rather than his. It's a subtle shift, yet it changes the dynamic of a tasting completely. The educator stops being the person with all the answers and becomes the person who helps everyone else find theirs. That idea extends beyond flavour, too.

Tamdhu Distillery Manager, Sandy MacIntyre, told us he judges a tasting by the atmosphere in the room. If people are asking questions, chatting to one another and genuinely engaging with the whiskies, he knows something is working. It's not about sticking rigidly to a timetable or covering every talking point. It's about recognising when people are enjoying themselves and allowing that energy to develop naturally.

It’s a useful reminder of just how much the way we share whisky matters.

Whether we're welcoming visitors into a distillery, training a hospitality team or introducing someone to Scotch whisky for the first time, our greatest asset isn't simply our knowledge, it's our ability to make people feel comfortable enough to engage with that knowledge.

And this doesn’t diminish expertise, it makes it more effective.  People are far more likely to remember the story behind a whisky if they feel part of the conversation. They're more likely to retain what they've learned if they discover it through discussion rather than instruction. Most importantly, they're more likely to come back.

As an industry, we spend a great deal of time thinking about recruitment, how we bring new drinkers into whisky and how we keep them engaged. Education has a huge role to play in that but only if it remains accessible.

That doesn't mean simplifying whisky or avoiding complexity. It means meeting people where they are. It means recognising that asking a question is often more powerful than delivering another fact, and that listening carefully can teach us just as much as speaking confidently.

When I look back over these conversations with our educators and contributors, there’s a common thread running through them all. We thought we were just talking about whisky tasting tips, but we ended up articulating something that sits right at the heart of Edinburgh Whisky Academy and the way we approach whisky education.

We want people to relax, participate and enjoy themselves as they study with us. If someone completes an Edinburgh Whisky Academy course knowing more than when they arrived but also more curious, more confident in their own palate and already thinking about the next whisky they’d like to explore, we’ve done something worthwhile.  

Because ultimately, good whisky education shouldn’t feel like an end point. It should be the beginning of a much longer journey - one that gives people the confidence to trust their own palate, the desire to keep exploring and perhaps most importantly, the feeling that whisky is a world they belong in. If we can achieve that, we haven’t simply taught someone about whisky; we’ve helped create the next generation of people who will enjoy it, talk about it and keep the category thriving.