Whisky has a vocabulary that is half technical, half traditional and almost entirely unexplained on the bottle. This glossary covers the forty terms you are most likely to meet on a label, in a review or on a distillery tour, each in a sentence or two. Where a term has a full guide of its own, the link takes you there. Terms are grouped by where you will encounter them rather than alphabetically, because that is how you will meet them.
On the label
ABV — alcohol by volume, the percentage of the liquid that is alcohol. Legal minimum for whisky in most countries is 40 per cent. See understanding ABV.
Proof — the American strength scale, where proof is double the ABV: 100 proof is 50 per cent. The old British proof scale was different and is no longer used.
Age statement — the number of years on the label, which by law refers to the youngest whisky in the bottle. See age statements explained.
NAS — no age statement. A whisky bottled without a stated age; it must still meet the legal minimum, usually three years.
Single malt — whisky made from 100 per cent malted barley at a single distillery.
Single grain — whisky from a single distillery made from a mash that includes grains other than malted barley, usually in a column still. Not the same as single malt.
Blended malt — a mix of single malts from more than one distillery, with no grain whisky. Formerly “vatted malt”.
Blended whisky — a mix of malt and grain whiskies.
Cask strength — whisky bottled at the strength it came out of the cask, without dilution. Typically 50 to 65 per cent.
Non-chill filtered — whisky that has not been chilled and filtered before bottling to remove compounds that cause cloudiness. Often abbreviated NCF.
Natural colour — no caramel colouring (E150a) has been added. The absence of this phrase usually means colouring has been used.
Single cask — every drop in the bottle came from one cask. Usually numbered and bottled at cask strength.
Small batch — a marketing term with no legal definition, meaning a limited number of casks were combined.
Bottled-in-bond — an American designation guaranteeing one distillery, one season, at least four years’ ageing and exactly 100 proof.
Straight — American whiskey aged at least two years with no additives.
Finish (on a label) — a secondary maturation in a different cask after the main one, as in “sherry finish” or “port finish”.
Vintage — the year the whisky was distilled, where stated. Rare on whisky labels compared with wine.
For how these fit together, see how to read a label.
In the distillery
Malt — barley that has been steeped, germinated and dried to convert its starches to fermentable sugar. See how whisky is made.
Peat — partially decomposed plant matter from bogs, burned to dry malt and give it smoke. See peat explained.
PPM — parts per million of phenols in peated malt, a measure of how heavily it was smoked. Does not directly predict how smoky the whisky tastes.
Mash — the mixture of milled malt and hot water in which sugars are extracted. The vessel is a mash tun; the sugary liquid is wort.
Washback — the fermentation vessel, traditionally wood and now often steel, where yeast turns wort into wash.
Wash — the fermented liquid, essentially a strong, hop-free beer, at around 8 per cent alcohol, that goes to the still.
Pot still — a copper kettle that distils in batches. Used for all single malt.
Column still — a continuous still that distils without batches, producing lighter spirit at higher strength. Also called a Coffey, patent or continuous still.
Lomond still — a pot still with adjustable plates in the neck, which can produce different styles of spirit. Rare; Scapa and Bruichladdich use one.
Lyne arm — the pipe from the top of a pot still to the condenser. Its angle affects how much vapour falls back into the still.
Reflux — vapour condensing inside the still and falling back to be redistilled. More reflux means lighter spirit.
Worm tub — an old-style condenser: a coiled copper pipe in a tub of cold water outdoors. Gives heavier, meatier spirit than a modern shell-and-tube condenser.
Cut — the stillman’s division of the spirit run into foreshots (heads), heart and feints (tails). Only the heart is kept.
New make — freshly distilled spirit before it enters a cask. Clear, strong and not yet whisky.
In the warehouse
Cask — the generic term for any wooden barrel used to mature whisky. See cask types explained.
Barrel — strictly, a cask of about 200 litres, the standard American size. Loosely, any cask.
Hogshead — a cask of about 250 litres, often rebuilt from American barrel staves.
Butt — a cask of about 500 litres, the traditional sherry size.
First-fill / refill — whether a cask is receiving whisky for the first time since its previous contents (bourbon, sherry) or has already held whisky once or more. First-fill gives more flavour.
Dunnage — a traditional warehouse: low, stone-built, earth-floored, casks stacked three high. Cooler and damper than modern racked warehouses.
Angel’s share — the portion of whisky lost to evaporation through the cask each year, about 2 per cent in Scotland. See maturation explained.
Marrying — combining several casks in a large vat for weeks or months before bottling so they integrate.
Independent bottler — a company that buys casks from distilleries and bottles them under its own label. See independent bottlers.
Words that sound technical and aren’t
Smooth — the most common word in whisky marketing and the least informative. It usually means low in alcohol burn, which is a function of strength, age and filtration rather than quality.
Premium — a price tier, not a standard. No regulator defines it.
Handcrafted / artisanal — unregulated. Every whisky is made by hand at some stage and by machine at others.
Reserve / Select / Special — brand tiers with no legal meaning. A distillery’s “Reserve” is whatever the distillery says it is.
Triple distilled — a real process (three passes through the still) that is often presented as a guarantee of smoothness. It makes a lighter spirit; it does not make a better one.
Mellowed — the Tennessee term for charcoal filtration before barrelling. Real, but specific to that process.
In the glass
Nose — the aroma of a whisky, and the act of smelling it. See how to taste whisky.
Palate — the taste and texture in the mouth.
Finish (in tasting) — the flavours that linger after swallowing, and how long they last.
Dram — a measure of whisky, in Scotland usually meaning “a glass of” without a fixed quantity.
Legs — the streaks that run down the inside of a glass after swirling. Said to indicate body; in practice they indicate alcohol and glycerol and tell you little.
Sulphur — a struck-match, rubbery or cooked-vegetable note from certain sherry casks or heavy spirit. A small amount is considered character; too much is a fault.
Rancio — a nutty, leathery, slightly funky note found in very old whisky and cognac, from long oxidation. A compliment.
That is more than forty, which is the nature of glossaries. The ones that matter most on a first bottle are the label terms; the rest will arrive as you read reviews and visit distilleries, and each has a guide on this site that takes it further.
