Origins of flavour in whiskies and a revised flavour wheel: a review

The nature and origins of flavour in whiskies are reviewed with the aim of developing a revised and simplified flavour wheel for training of sensory a ssessors. Scotch whiskies are perceived as having distinctive characters, g enerally recognised in pattern recognition (perception, macroscopic brain p rocessing), rather than being subjected to a deconstruction process of eval uating attributes (sensation, microscopic brain processing). Although consu mers use simple recognition judgements on whisky flavour in categorical ass imilation, industry has a requirement for monitoring spirit quality that ne cessitates a more reductionist approach. Whisky flavour wheels identify att ributes, specific components of flavour character, which can be demonstrate d to sensory assessors using reference standards. The advent of cyclodextri n bound reference standards has enabled communication of information on fla vour character in training of assessors, as exploited in the brewing indust ry. A revised flavour wheel, with characters illustrated by reference stand ards, is proposed to assist sensory training on attributes of whisky flavou r character.