The Little Book of Whisky
Travel Distilled reviews The Little Book of Whisky by Nick Moyle, the ideal beginner’s guide and a Whisky 101 that would make the perfect present.
If you want the ideal gift for the would-be whisky lover in your life then look no further than The Little Book of Whisky by Nick Moyle. It would make a great Christmas stocking-filler, or indeed a present for any time of the year. In its 128 pages it packs pretty much everything the beginner would need to know in order to become, if not quite a whisky expert, at least someone who has a thorough grasp of the basics.
Even if you’re not an absolute beginner, you’ll probably learn something from the book. For example, I think I h
ave a pretty good whisky knowledge but I learned something here about whisky-making in Scandinavia, and in some other parts of Europe, that I didn’t know before.
Author of The Little Book of Whisky
Nick Moyle is the author of this pocket-sized book, as well as writing The Little Book of Gin. He’s also a home-brewer and has written several books about making stuff at home, like your own craft drinks, wine, beer, cider and how to brew your own teas from home-grown or foraged ingredients. He’s a graphic designer as well, as if all that wasn’t enough. And he certainly knows his whisky.
The Little Book of Whisky: Glossary
The book sensibly begins with a glossary of the most common whisky terms, so that you know what you’re talking – and reading – about.
Whisky History
The author then answers the question ‘Where does whisky come from?’, followed by sections on its origins in Scotland, Ireland, the USA, Canada and Japan, interspersed with pages on topics such as whisky-blending, prohibition and the single-malt whisky renaissance.
Fun Interruptions
The book doesn’t have any photos but it breaks up the text with two sets of fun interruptions. The first is a series of quotations about whisky:
Dear, you cannot drink gin and tonic in the middle of the night. You must have whisky to give you energy.
Margaret Thatcher.
The second is a series of Fun Facts under the heading of Did You Know:
In 2023, it was estimated there were 12.6 million barrels ageing in the state of Kentucky. That’s nearly three barrels for every resident. In Scotland, the ratio of casks to people is even higher – roughly four per resident – with around 22 million casks in maturation.
Types of Whisky
This section covers types of whisky on a country-by-country basis, also covering the rules about what can be called whisky, and then an explanation of the different types such as rye, grain, single-malt, blended, corn, bourbon, and so on.
Having written many books myself, especially travel guides, I know what it’s like as an author to be told you have to sum up something in just a hundred or two hundred words, so that it fits on one page. This whole book is filled with one-page descriptions, and I doff my cap to the author for getting so much information in such a small space.
Fascinating Flavours
In this section you’ll learn how to drink whisky to best effect, and what flavours to look for in different whiskies – sweet, spicy, floral, grassy, vanilla, woody and so on. Reading this will certainly enhance your whisky-drinking pleasure. There are pages, too, on pairing whisky and food, whisky liqueurs, unusual cask finishes, and a few more relevant topics.
Cocktail Hour
No whisky book of this type would be complete without some whisky cocktail recipes. This section only runs to 14 pages but you will learn how to make some whisky cocktail classics like the Manhattan, Old Fashioned, Mint Julep, Whisky Sour, along with a few others and some suggestions for variations on them. Each recipe also has a suggestion for which whisky you might use to make it. This obviously can’t compete with a book devoted to whisky cocktails, but as something for beginners just starting to get into learning about whisky, it’s a good primer.
Buying the Little Book of Whisky
I can heartily recommend this book for the right reader. It will be a bit basic for the whisky connoisseur, but for the beginner or novice whisky drinker, it’s ideal. It’s published by Summersdale and you can find it on Amazon. Be careful when buying as this is an update of a previous book of the same title, also published by Summersdale but several years ago and by a different author.
Recent Posts
