This kind of nerdy discussion about how perception, especially smell, works is one of the things that has me coming back to this channel as a non-drinker.

As a neuropsychologist,I say kudos to you for an excellent discussion of the interplay between brain and behavior. Cool stuff isn't it.

The blending of the nerdy science with passionate story telling is what I so look forward to with this channel. Such a fresh and unique experience. Thank Daniel.

Welcome all Whiskey Vaulters to Story Time with Daniel! Great talk on pattern recognition.

I work in the wine & spirits industry, went through a lot of tasting, and still learned a couple new things. I always love these videos, thank you for the love you put into them.

Love it! Ordered the book and saved the episode.😉👍🏽

This level of nerdiness mixed with passion and fun is exactly why you guys inspired me to start my journey into the world of whiskey.

This was enjoyable - I’m terrible at smelling what’s in a whiskey

Thank you for this video. Great analysis and approach to smell. I feel like sometimes we tend to think right away about particular notes, tricking ourselves into dispair and unefficiency. I felt like this video explores a more laid-back look into smell and takes the approach of being more patient and enjoying the pleasure of the unknown and the process to create future knowledge. Really helpful video, I'm enjoying a lot this new dynamic.

My whiskey journey began approx 1 year ago. December of 2023 found me wandering deep into into Islay territory -- in particular Ardbeg Uigeadail. It was as though an ambulance crashed into a tire factory: just a horrid smell and taste; however, you and Rex's passion convinced me to keep at it. Not long after my first experience with the Uigeadail, it is now one of my favorite whiskeys. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and wonderful stories.

Mannn I’ve been into whiskey and cigars for probably 10 years. I think I used to have really refined palate. COVID ruined that for me. It’s taken almost three years to get back to half of what I used to be. I gave up both for over a year because I couldn’t hardly stomach it. It’s insane how it all works together

This may have been my favorite video so far.

Outstanding as always Daniel. Your final statement was spot frigging on. I'd love to find a dusty bottle of this sitting on a local liquor store's shelf. And as I've said before, thank you for taking us along on your journey. Cheers...

One of my all time favourites is something I know there will not ever be again just the same, a single cask bottling of 17yo Arran malt. I had two bottles few years ago.

You guys were so right about cask/barrel strength whiskey! I got a bottle of Keepers Heart irish+bourbon. Cask strength. WOW! ALL the flavor. If you see it, BUY IT!

Time of day, different day, different week. My experience with wine and spirits have often changed dramatically. Company I have been with has often influenced my experience over the years. I will always give something a second chance! Thank you for your insight!!

Interesting video. I hadn't thought of tasting and smelling in such detail. I have a terrible sense of smell due to repeated injuries to my nose. really enjoy the explanation for notes people pick up.

Fun walk through the meadow.

Great video! I've always kinda known this was true, but I never could articulate it, and you just brought into perfect perspective for me! Thank you.

Loved this video and message!! Keep them coming

Life got really crazy for me soon after the channel split, I hadn't seen any of what you've been doing over here save for the furst few videos. Which did enjoy.. but wow, I'm really enjoying what's happening with the channel now. I love the variety. Stay nerdy, stay experimental, stay magnificent.

Learned a lot in this one. Thanks.

Daniel, I got two bottles of this 2 years ago at a small store that had three on the shelf. Gave one as a gift and have been savoring my bottle. Was an hour away from that same store last year and drove over just to see if they still had that last bottle. They did! It has been top 3 for me across all categories of whiskey since the first smell and taste. I wish I had a case! If you discover something comparable like you said let me know. Great episode and enjoy the chats!

Love this! when I started the journey 2 years ago, I had a close friend that shared the same message minus the scientific context. The closing remark; and guide you in closer relationships and humanity. Here here! Cheers!

Great stuff Daniel, you're knocking it out of the park!!

I’m relatively new to whiskey drinking. I can’t tell you what I’m tasting in anything I drink, but I know what I like. Redbreast Cask Strength is my current favorite, but outside of that I lean towards bourbons, like Jack Daniel’s single barrel or Bulleit

Thank you for this talking about this. I just started my own youtube channel (in Portuguese) where I talk about whiskey and do some comparisons and I just did and uploaded my first blind taste test. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I thought I would be able to pick out the whiskeys but I couldn't. I had fun doing it but it was definitely a learning experience. If you have any extra tips to throw my way, I'd gladly appreciate it.

I'm more of a cocktails kind of guy, but lately I've been trying to improve my smell and tasting notes with neat spirits. I bought a bottle of Dictador Insolent rum over the weekend, and when I tried it today it immediately made me think of milk chocolate on the nose. I thought a little more, and realized that it wasn't just milk chocolate, I was getting Lindor milk chocolate truffles! I've never had a smell or tasting note that specific before, and it was a definite eureka moment just like you guys have said. It was a really fun experience, one I'm very eager to repeat soon!

this is fantastic, very informative, helpful

Good information I hope it helps people out in the future 🥃

“Proof” by Adam Rogers is one of the required reading for the Master of Scotch exam. It’s a deep dive into nerdiness, I highly recommend it. As you said the ability to smell is tied to memory and emotions so if I’m mentally or emotionally not at my best it’s a bad time to blind taste. Oh, and SLEEP is important too so recovering from jet lag before a blind tasting is a must… and praying a lot doesn’t hurt.

Thank you. I'm really glad you're here too. Respect-Love-Support

Wow, what a great episode! Awesome conversation on perception, about whiskey and life. One of my favorite classes in college was a food sensory class (Food Science major). One lab experiment we did was how color affected perception. We had something like 6-7 flavored flavored liquids (e.g., cherry, grape, etc.) and 6-7 colors, so there were a lot of combinations. We had to try and identify the flavors. It's incredible how difficult it is to identify something non-traditional, like cherry in a green liquid vs a red one. The value of training and knowing how the brain works can help circumvent some of these obstacles.

I see Powers, I hit like.

fantastic video daniel! sharing this in the perfume community too.

I learn so much from this amazing channel! Thanks Daniel!! I’d have a dram of this whisky!! Have an awesome day!! Cheers!!

I've noticed that sometimes I love a whiskey like a double oak, after I eat grilled foods. Sometimes it just isn't what I want, and even the smell makes me want something different. Semi-new to actually appreciating whiskey and not just throwing shots back at a party once in a while. I feel less newbie every time I learn something from this series.

Thank you for this! I can't tell you how many times I am having a dram with someone and they smell what feels like about 100 things and I smell 4 or 5. Maybe I'm not quite as bad as I have felt.

Gone? Oh! I won’t get to try a delicious seam. I didn’t realize right away that this expression is discontinued. Oily with a long sounds wonderful! Now that I know it’s D/c I want it even more!! So psychological!! lol!! Picking up actual physical molecules with smell is fascinating! As a psychologist - brain geek - I often think about this with the brain, scent and pattern creation! Lacking the language and brain function is also fascinating!! You sound like you are into psychological issues/studies!! Cool!!

I think memory recall is the most important skill when tasting whiskey or other spirits.

I have a video which addresses a question I had at one point - when whiskey reviewers name all these notes, are they just making things up? Evaluating whiskey is so subjective that at one point I began to believe that they are. I learned that they aren't, but it can sure seem so. I'm not a wine guy, but the subject reminds me of an upset in wine that I've read about - the Judgment of Paris. 8:41 That explains why smelling something can *immediately* call forth a powerful memory, even of something you've not thought of in years. I've had that happen to me, and for a moment I've *seen* that alley in Songtan, South Korea. 🇰🇷

Oh that's awesome. Love it. Thank you sir for another great conversation

Great stuff! makes sense to me. cheers

I had started to ask about a comparison to John's Lane, and then you did it. Anyway, John's Lane is my current favorite Irish Single Pot Still Whiskey.

Realy liked this. Iˋm only 2 years into my Whisky journey and I find it hard to describe both the smell and the taste. Still very much to learn, the only thing I´m sure of is that I enjoy it 😃

RB 27 is the first whiskey where i tasted something, Apricot notes.

Super cool!

Goddamn I'm loving this new version of the show.

Fantastic

Amen

To me, Four Roses comes across with similar notes. Admittedly, it's not an Irish but a decent stand-in for this Powers bottle.

On a trip to Ireland, I took a few whiskey tours. I was looking out for things I could get back home easily. Fell in love with Powers Three Swallows. Got home, and, of course I couldn’t get it in NC. Flash forward a couple years and I pick up two bottles in SC. Get it home, and I couldn’t bear to open it for three months because I was afraid it wouldn’t taste as good as I remembered. Would it be the same without being in Dublin in a cozy whiskey house? Our brains are weird.

Very nice video and review. It seems to me that, besides having good memory recognition, the closer to the same parameters and conditions each and every time you nose and taste a whiskey, the more consistent your identifications of notes will be. Or if you expand your memory recognition to many different scenarios, the more accurate you will be. But there are times when you just want a nice whiskey to relax with. Thank you for a very though provoking video. Just an off the wall thought, I wonder if smell memory recognition can be used with people with dementia to improve or stablize their memory.

*nods to the music* This might be my favorite video you've done so far!

When my wife and I go to a restaurant with a good whiskey selection, she'll order me a blind pour. It's amazing the rabbit holes I can go down thinking I know what it is lol

Yeah that Powers Signature Release is unfortunately discontinued. I'm sipping on Powers Three Swallow right now which is the closest current version of Powers to the Signature. If you ever get the chance to try the new Powers John's Lane Cask Strength, it's really good.

It's interesting that you equate a professional's process to that of a spectrograph...a spectrograph just gives a pattern, but the human (or automated) analysis NEEDs a known pattern to compare the result against . So a whiskey somm's brain is operating in a similar manner?! Pretty cool :)

Love this. A shop by me has a 14 Year single cask powers and now you have me wondering if it would be similar to this 🤔 Its in the old bottle as well but obviously that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Love this.

Midleton, please bring back Signature!

please review johns lane and three swallows

Actually the first and second (olfactory and optic) nerves are extensions of the brain! That’s why we pay attention to them in certain conditions!

That was great!

I wonder what is the closest in the "new" Power range to the Signature release, any ideas or pointers? Cheers.

I thought this was going to include tips like opening your mouth while smelling whiskey to absorb the alcohol vapors in order to really get into the flavor of that whiskey. Do you think there’s a relationship between memory and whiskey? I don’t just mean remembering the smells and flavors, I mean with my favorite scotch the taste kind of reminds me of being a kid and going to bonfires on the beach with my dad’s cousins. I wouldn’t say that I enjoy that memory more than others but it’s just always what I’m reminded of

HI IF POSSIBLE TRY INDRI TRINI INDIAN SINGLE MALT WHISKY

I like Powers 12 :)

Old Powers bottle 🍾

You could Texas Two Step your way to the chair next time!

I'm going to tell my wife to hold opinions loosely when I tell her I love her 😉

😁🙌🏻

Chronic allergies here, makes smelling any but the most dominant scents difficult.

It's best with a straw

give us back the intro music

So experts are good at putting words to patterns?

8:20 bring this up when people catch you farting.

I really miss the Daniel Rex dynamic. Dan is great, but Rex helped break up the monologues. I’m not attacking Dan, just the pair made for more of the sum of its parts.

Blind tastes are interesting. A buddy of mine poured me Quality House which is pretty bottom shelf. He told me it was eagle rare and with that in mind I tasted much richer notes in the Quality House than I would have if I knew it was the cheap stuff ahead of time.

That brain/language relationship you alluded to might be "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis"... Maybe

4:19 I am NOT drinking any f***ing merlot!! If you know, you know 😉

Does it make me a dick that I need to point out that Daniel referred to this whiskey as Scottish?

Oké. Try someone who is constantly using his or her nose in their daily job. Like chef's....

good thing I'm left-handed, you suckers.