Looking at the Binny's special, I see this as the opening description of a whiskey:
"Opening nose hints of pine tar,
I'm guessing the person that wrote this never ever played baseball and used pinetar, because if you have that's not something you are going to want to take a swig up.
Seriously where do they get this bull [expletive] from? Who in their right mind has ever tasted pine tar?
jim wrote:Looking at the Binny's special, I see this as the opening description of a whiskey:
"Opening nose hints of pine tar,
I'm guessing the person that wrote this never ever played baseball and used pinetar, because if you have that's not something you are going to want to take a swig up.
Seriously where do they get this bull [expletive] from? Who in their right mind has ever tasted pine tar?
I actually like the smell of pine tar, but I can't imagine it tastes very good.
I think they are referring to the smells of pine tar and it's probably not bs. Wine people refer to flint, cat piss, iodine, pencil shavings and lots more.
If you've had a wine with 'sauvignon' in the name you've had the compound that causes wine to smell like cat pee (p-mentha-8-something-something). Either it was in the wrong concentration range to let loose that litter box smell or it was a perception thing that didn't land.
Here's something beer-specific that applies to bourbon and to the drink-it-how-you-like-it thing.
I was talking last Monday with my friend Nunzino. He owns Hop Head Farms in Michigan. He supplies hops to folks like Russian River, Three Floyd's, Firestone Walker, Revolution, Victory, etc. He's basically the Rolls Royce of hop farms in the US. Also there was my friend Matt, who brews at Firestone Walker and who buys hops from Nunz, and my friend Jim who is the head brewer at Revolution in Chicago. We were talking about perception, and how Nunz works with brewers when they visit the farm with a specific want in mind.
So, Matt will visit Hop Head Farms and say "I want something peppery." Nunz will show him hops that Nunz finds peppery. Matt will say they're not what he's looking for. They will keep going and a hop that Nunz thinks smells like Gummy Bears Matt will go "Yes! This! Peppery!"
That's weird, but it's perception. So now, when Matt comes to Nunz asking for "peppery" Nunz goes right to what he thinks of as Gummy Bears and Matt is happy. He does this with all of the brewers he works with. Nick Floyd wants "dank" so Nunz goes looking not for what's "dank" to him but what in his perception matches Nick's "dank." This aspect of his job is understanding how his customers perceive hop aromas, and then mapping their perception to his.
Even people at the highest levels, like arguably the best hop grower in the US and arguably the best beer brewers in the US, their perception and taste do not match up. That's why IMO no one should really listen to me or to anyone else about what bourbon or beer or whatever they should drink (unless it's just, y'know, bad beer as in poorly made) unless the other person has a really good idea of what your taste is.
haltz wrote:thiol I think. I never pick it up off cabs, but that sulfur ammonia smell almost always exists up front in California sav blancs.
Thiols are a broad category of sulfur containing molecules that are used as odorants in many things ranging from natural gas to perfumes. Obviously they are naturally occurring as well. It's really fascinating what is considered a pleasant odor.
